By ANNE BESTON environment reporter
Auckland's environment council is backing a $20 million aerial insecticide blitz covering a huge area as the best way to eliminate a pest moth.
The Auckland Regional Council has thrown its support behind a 25,000-50,000ha spraying, one of four options Cabinet ministers will consider when they meet
to decide the fate of the painted apple moth programme next month. A spray campaign of that size would be six times bigger than the $12 million East Auckland campaign in 1996-97.
Yesterday councillors at a parks and heritage committee meeting voiced their concern over the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's handling of the moth incursion, saying ratepayers should not pick up the bill for future control of the pest.
"There is general agreement that MAF have messed up and they are extremely reluctant to accept they have done so," said councillor Sandra Coney.
"Senior officers" within MAF appeared ready to "throw in the towel" on eradicating the moth and the ARC and Auckland's city councils would be left with the problem.
Councillor Catherine Harland called MAF's response to the incursion "slow and inadequate".
By backing a huge aerial campaign, the council hopes costs for eradicating the moth will fall on the Government. Scientists consider a blanket operation has the best chance of success.
The ARC is also trying to protect the council-administered Waitakere Ranges, the most important wilderness area near Auckland. Painted apple moth has been found feeding on three native tree species in the ranges.
The other options the Cabinet will consider are to take no further action, accept the moth is here to stay and opt to control its spread, and to extend the helicopter spray zone to between 2000ha and 3000ha, about five times the present area. They will decide next month.
The MAF scientist leading the fight against the moth, Dr Ruth Frampton, said last week that she believed the Government was likely to adopt option two - extending the present zone.
Moth numbers have been steadily falling over the past five weeks as the three-month-old targeted helicopter operation begins having an effect.
The ministry is spraying a biological insecticide, Foray 48B or Btk, over 600ha in West Auckland.
The moth, a native of Australia, was discovered in 1999 in Glendene and is considered a $48 million threat to forestry and horticulture.
nzherald.co.nz/environment
