Shoe scrubber to help keep Tane Mahuta disease free

Department of Conservation Kauri Coast operations manager Diane Sanderson at the Te Matua Ngahere track cleaning station. Photo/Michael Cunningham

After this week the people bowing at the feet of the Lord of the Forest will have clean feet themselves.

The track leading to Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest, has been temporarily closed for a footwear cleaning station to be installed to protect New Zealand's largest kauri against kauri dieback.

"Kauri dieback is the single biggest threat kauri have ever faced. It slowly starves a tree to death, infecting the roots and destroying tissues that carry water and nutrients,"
Conservation Minister Maggie Barry said when announcing the closure.

"It's vital we keep the spores away from Tane Mahuta."

Tane Mahuta.

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The cleaning station is an additional protection measure for the tree that already has coils of barbed wire amongst low vegetation near the base to deter tree-huggers or souvenir hunters, and the boardwalk was rerouted.

"The cleaning station will have brushes to remove mud and Sterigene disinfectant spray after all mud has been brushed off footwear. Sterigene will kill kauri dieback spores on footwear, but only if the shoes are mud-free," Ms Barry said.

Te Roroa Manawhenua Trust Board Chairman, Sonny Nesbit, said kauri dieback was a serious issue.

"The spread of this disease is a major threat to the health and wellbeing of kauri in the Waipoua Forest and throughout New Zealand. It will impact heavily on iconic trees such as Tane Mahuta and Te Iwi o Te Roroa who have had a cultural and spiritual connection to this Ngahere for hundreds of years," Mr Nesbit said.

The Tane Mahuta track will be closed until Friday while the footwear cleaning station is installed, in time for the busy Easter holidays.

Before this week, visitors only had to walk through a shoe-bath at the track's entrance.

Last year a similar scrubbing station was installed at the start of the 20-minute forest track past the Four Sisters cluster to the world's second biggest kauri tree, Te Matua Ngahere.