Tramping club pressures forestry issue

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 7, Issue 341, 26 June 1990, Page 6

Tramping club pressures forestry issue

The Wanganui Tramping Club is throwing its weight behind efforts to require the new owners of Karioi Forest to remove Pinus contorta.

Pinus contorta is a noxious plant and there is a legal requirement on landowners to remove it by 1993. Karioi Forest, administered by Timberlands NZ ad a State-Owned Enterprise, contains the highest seeding population of pinus contorta in N.ew Zealand. It provides the seed

base of contorta that tramping clubs have been pulling in nearby Tongariro National Park for more than 20 years. It is feared the new owners of the forest ~ will not be interested in the eradication programme unless it is written into the saies contract. At the moment there is no discussion in the saies prospectus of pinus contorta control, nor of the noxious plant requirement. Covenant The Wanganui club has joined other groups and the Army in urging SOE Minister Richard Prebble to have a covenant included in the sale of Karioi Forest to ensure the new owners remove pinus contorta by the mandatory date of 1993. The Forest Research Institute is conducting trials on behalf of the Army Training Group to find the most environmentally effective way of eradicating contorta within the Army's area. Subject to the availability of finance, it is intended to spray and burn the Army's own potential seed source in its zone, which contains unexploded ammunition, in next year's programme. The total noxious weed programme for the ATG for 1990/91 is es-

timated to cost $1.5 million, of which just under $1 million is required for contorta alone. Some scientists view the military-controlled land around Waiouru as ecologically more significant than the park itself. Contorta was planted in Karioi Forest between 1927 and 1935. Every summer the seeds - light and winged - can travel 12km from the parent tree. This takes them from the forest into Maori land or beyond into Tongariro National Park or military land. DSIR botanist Ian Atkinson first alerted park staff to the magnitude of the problem in 1962. Unless action was taken, he said, most of the upper slopes of Mt Ruapehu between 1300 and 2000m would be covered by pine forest by the end of the century. Despite the opposition of foresters, park staff began an eradication programme. Volunteer pine weeders began arriving on a regular basis in 1967. The Wanganui club was one of the earliest participants and puts in two full weekends each summer. Thanks to these efforts, the problem within the park has been contained. This article is reprinted from the Wanganui Chronicle.