Lessons from Lord Howe

Forest and Bird, Issue 268, 1 May 1993, Page 6

Lessons from Lord Howe

Julia Morris

LORD HOWE ISLAND, a 1,400-hectare volcanic island 700 km north-east of Sydney, is not well known as a holiday destination for New Zealanders. Yet every year thousands of visitors from around the world book in for a week’s "nature" holiday: walking, bird-watching, snorkelling and fishing. In fact, tourists are turned away because the number on the island at any one time is limited to 400. Although politically part of Australia, Lord Howe is perhaps closer biologically to New Zealand. Walking through the forest, a New Zealander would recognise trees from many familiar genera. Its bird life was also once very similar, as Lord Howe had its own species of morepork, silver eye, redcrowned parakeet, fantail and even a gallinule related to the takahe. All these birds are now extinct because, like New Zealand, Lord Howe has suffered from the impact of introduced mammals. Pigs decimated the ground-nesting seabird colonies; cats and rats wiped out forest birds, a gecko and a skink. Goats and rats interfered with forest regeneration. But Lord Howe also has its conservation success stories. In 1982 it became a World Heritage site, as "an outstanding example of independent evolutionary processes" and area of exceptional natural beauty. Indeed, in spite of 150 years of human colonisation, Lord Howe retains a remarkable 70 percent of its forests which now have permanent reserve status. The reason the forests have survived, where so many other lowland forests in the Pacific have not, is the Kentia palm. In the 1870s, the collection and sale of seeds and seedlings of the palm replaced whaling as the island’s main economic base. The Kentia, tolerating low light conditions and low tem-

peratures, became the classic European indoor palm. As the industry was based on the collection of seed from the natural forest, existing forest was preserved and replaced. Today NZ$2.7 million worth of seedlings are exported each year. The Kentia palm industry has had an impact on other

aspects of Lord Howe’s natural history. Ship rats arrived on the island in 1918 and quickly reached plague proportions, causing the extinction of nine of the fifteen species of land bird and dramatically reducing the Kentia palm seed harvest. The islanders declared war on the rats, first by placing a bounty on them and then by an extensive and continuing poisoning programme. This programme effectively controlled rat numbers and maintained the viability of the palm industry. Birds and invertebrates were also winners from the decline in rats. Cats as well became the focus of a control programme, but in this case not for strictly commercial reasons. In the 1970s attention was turned to the survival of the Lord Howe

Island woodhen, at that time one of the world’s rarest birds. Cats were identified as the major cause of their decline and the feral cat population was extensively poisoned. Domestic cats were not overlooked. The islanders agreed to the desexing of all

their domestic cats and then not to replace them as they died. Today there are only a handful of aged moggys left on the island and the woodhen thrives in both the forest and residential areas. Other birds benefited from the end of cat predation, especially the burrowing seabirds. Fleshfooted shearwaters nest throughout the lowland forest, wedge-tailed shearwaters burrow in the grass alongside the island’s roads. The abundant bird life, by both day and night is one of the major drawcar1 in the island’s ecotourism industry. The Lord Howe Island experience provides a model of how both conservation and commercial values can co-exist and even enhance each other. In New Zealand, conserva-

tion often results in the complete exclusion of the human presence and in many cases this is necessary. There are, however, already inhabited islands in New Zealand where conservation and human values need not necessarily be in conflict. Lord Howe Island illustrates how a different approach can work. The Lord Howe Island woodhen was the Lord Howe equivalent of the black robin. In effect, the islanders were persuaded to exchange their pet cats for a family of friendly

woodhens at the bottom of the garden. Perhaps the same principles could apply to New Zealand islands like Pitt, in the Chathams, and Stewart Island. While we may have something to learn from Lord Howe Island, we may have something to offer as well. Recent New Zealand advances in island rat eradication could perhaps help Lord Howe solve the rat problem that has troubled it for so long.