KEY POINTS:
Kiwi face extinction on the mainland within 20 years, says a report on the future of New Zealand's most endangered species.
The review of the first five years of the Government's biodiversity strategy shows that species loss is continuing and we don't know how bad things are.
One
of the problems identified in the independent review, by Waikato University ecologist Dr Bruce Clarkson and research ecologist Dr Wren Green, was the "very few" targets against which conservation progress could be measured.
That made it difficult to know whether the strategy's 43 "priority actions" had been even partly achieved.
No species was known to have become extinct during the past five years, the report says.
But if one were on the verge of extinction it was possible no one would know.
"The lack of a monitoring programme capable of reporting on the status and condition of all threatened species ... means early warning of imminent loss will not necessarily occur," the report says.
"We are not optimistic that there will be no further extinction in the next 15 years."
Intensive effort in some areas had improved security for at least some groups of threatened species.
But the level of management would be insufficient to prevent population decreases and even the risk of losses of species such as kiwi, blue duck and mohua (yellowhead) on mainland New Zealand within the next 20 years, the report says.
North Island kiwi sanctuaries had above-average chick survival rates, but overall the population of the birds was in serious decline.
Loss of "indigenous ecosystems, some with very high biodiversity values" on private land, especially lowlands, happened at a rate of 4500ha a year between 1998 and 2002, and there was evidence this had continued.
Good progress had been made in the fight against invasive and alien species, but one or two new weeds a year were still being found.
Lack of resources and money and poor co-ordination between local and central Government agencies were other problems identified in the report.
Conservation Minister Chris Carter said conservation guidelines for local government would be issued early next year and a new monitoring system for the Department of Conservation was being developed.
Forest and Bird spokesman Kevin Hackwell said the answer to the title of the report, "Turning the Tide?" on biodiversity loss, was still "No".
