The Department of Conservation says rat numbers will increase unless it receives more annual funding to protect biodiversity. Photo / CC BY NC 3.0 NZ Nga Manu Images
The Department of Conservation says rat numbers will increase unless it receives more annual funding to protect biodiversity. Photo / CC BY NC 3.0 NZ Nga Manu Images
Rat numbers could double by 2090 if climate change gets really bad, says the Department of Conservation (DoC) as it hunts urgently for $150 million in extra revenue.
DoC has told MPs it needs this much more money each year to“not go backwards”.
Director-General Penny Nelson said the $360m spent annually on biodiversity would be inadequate when faced with the range of the greatest threats to species and ecosystems – wilding pines, goats and deer, and pests and diseases.
“What we’re seeing through some of the research that we’ve done in terms of climate change impacts, under a high-climate scenario, we’re potentially looking at having, I think, rat populations doubling by 2090,” said Nelson during scrutiny week last week.
Modelling showed it would take $2 billion a year to ensure nature would thrive, but that was unrealistic and the department was having to prioritise spending.
DoC was also intent on finding commercial ways to generate more revenue. One NZ was among the companies on board, giving its rangers increased mobile coverage and satellite connections, Nelson said.
Department of Conservation Director-General Penny Nelson says it is facing increasing cost pressures. Photo / RNZ, Samuel Rillstone
Commercial revenues compared to Crown funding were small. However, DoC’s recreational revenue rose 15% to $29m because of a jump in Great Walk fee income. The amount it earned from concessions and permits for commercial activities on conservation land rose 10% to $30m.
MPs heard the department had cut more than 260 jobs in 12 months, met the public savings target of 6.5%, absorbed inflation and still delivered efficiently; it now had better forecasting and, for the first time, a 10-year capital spending plan.
Yet despite all this, it faced a further $120m-plus of cost pressures up to 2029, Nelson said.
“We are at risk of starting to get into not being able to deliver as many results as we are currently.”
The $150m – $50m for high-priority management (eg tara iti, kākāriki karaka, coastal dune systems) and $100m for urgent ecosystems and species that are currently unfunded (eg threatened plants, invertebrates) – would enable “real gains” against threats.
The country’s two million hectares of wilding pines, for instance, would cost $156m to combat over two decades in their prime source of Marlborough. The fight nationally required $30m a year but spending was running at a third of that.
“If we don’t get that under control that is going to have an impact on both public conservation land and primary sector land.”
Disasters and fires were also draining funds.
Eight emergencies had been declared this year and last month’s firefight in Tongariro National Park had cost millions.
Nelson said the country needed a change of mindset about nature. Economists had put a price tag on natural capital of $134b, she added.
“If we don’t invest in nature-based assets, the country will look vastly different in the next 20 to 50 years.
“If we don’t invest that in the next 10 to 20 years, New Zealand will be really different.”
DoC told RNZ it would soon publish a report on the likely climate change impacts on the demography of ship rats, mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, hares and wasps.
