Fri, 01 May 2009 9:44 am – Posted by Guest | 2 Comments
Hauraki island branch secretary, Sue Fitchett
I am a self-described tree lover and so the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) have left me, and many others fearing for our notable and second generation trees.
Trees, as poet Ruth Fainlight wrote, are those witnesses, huge mild beings/who suffer the consequence/of sharing our planet and cannot/move away from any evil/we subject them to
The changes are effectively a costly opt-in system, whereby each and every tree will need to be scheduled, either as a grove or individually (In Auckland City the cost could be in the vicinity of $200 per scheduling) in order to receive some protection.
Banning tree protection rules, as the Government plans to do, will leave trees in 700 of Auckland’s 800 parks unprotected, and give landowners the ability to cut down any tree that is not in a reserve or listed in a district plan schedule.
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Published in: Auckland, General, Native plants and forests
Tags: arborist association, resource consent, RMA, trees
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Wed, 18 Mar 2009 9:29 am – Posted by Mandy | 6 Comments
Blowing into the Chatham islands on the kind of Antarctic wind that keeps its trees in a permanent supine position, I’m greeted on the airport’s gangway by a southerly blast that ushers me hurriedly onto a land where the plants, birds and insect life is like no where else in the world.
The Chatham Islands murderous wind; the super-sized Chatham Island tui & the transmittter which tracks each of the birds post-release.
Weta -eating spiders the size of your fist, supersize tui, spike-free lancewood, and over 160 endemic species of insects call this archipelago home, however the majority of these unique species can only be found on the three small, inaccessible offshore islands that surround the mainland.
These very islands hold almost 20% of New Zealand’s threatened bird species (Black Robin, Forbes Parakeet, CI Mollymawk, CI Snipe, CI Shore Plover), but with the hard work of two conservationists these species may stage a return to the main island.
Here to bear witness to the transfer of CI tui onto the main Chatham island after a 25 year absence, I point my jeep in the direction of the Southern tip where the 14 birds are being held pre-release. It only takes a drive through the countryside to see why birds & plants find this land inhospitable.
Large stretches of farmland and patches of bracken fill my window, punctuated by the odd tree set at a 45 degree angle. Farmers removed much of the island’s historical artefacts (Moriori tree carvings) and unique natural heritage* one hundred and fifty years ago by cutting great swathes of forested land, and converting it to farmland.
Now just a few forested patches remain, and the salt-laced, corrosive and sometimes murderous winds, have destroyed exposed parts of these remnants leaving tree cemeteries on their borders.
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Published in: Native land animals, Native plants and forests
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Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:01 am – Posted by Alan Fleming | 3 Comments
Browsed, milled, cleared & mined over the years - it’s not hard to see why one of our largest tracts of forest – the Bay of Plenty’s Kamai Mamaku forest - has been a key focus for several of our North island branches. So as the newly appointed central North Island field officer, my arm almost left its shoulder socket when asked to take a walk through parts of this 37,000 hectare forest land.
This stretch of forest contains a unique mix of plant-life that encompasses warm kauri in the North and cool beech to its South. Its long, narrow shape and plant diversity is a very microcosm of Aotearoa. Over the week we would take in three very different forests - the northern Waitawheta forest, Aongatete in the middle and Otanewainuku to the south. A snapshot of the forest’s health in one week! Donning some binoculars & channelling the spirit of a forest doctor, I set about on the walk.
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Published in: Bay of Plenty, General, Native plants and forests
Tags: kamai mamaku, pest control
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Tue, 30 Sep 2008 9:22 am – Posted by Marina | 4 Comments
Welcome to Forest & Bird’s weblog. Like Forest & Bird itself, our weblog will touch on just about everything native and New Zealand: our native plants, animals, our wilderness areas and environment, whether they are on land, in our lakes, rivers and oceans.
We welcome your thoughts and ideas about how we can all contribute to helping preserve our precious – and vulnerable – natural heritage.
Standby for opinion pieces, diary-style web-logs, videos of our projects and much, much more. Just watch this space!
Published in: Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Climate Change, Energy, F&B National, Fresh water, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, High country, International, Manawatu-Wanganui, Marine and Coastal, Native land animals, Native plants and forests, Northland, Otago, Regions, Southland / Stewart Island, Taranaki, Threats and Impacts, Top of the South, Topics, Waikato, Wellington, West Coast
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