Peter Young warns iconic Molesworth Station is at risk from wilding pines. Photo / Peter Young Collection
Peter Young warns iconic Molesworth Station is at risk from wilding pines. Photo / Peter Young Collection
Opinion by Peter Young
Peter Young has filmed for TVNZ’s Hyundai Country Calendar for more than 25 years and has also made his own documentaries, including The Last Ocean and Fight for the Wild. He began his working life as a musterer Molesworth Station and shares his concerns about the possibility of the iconic station being smothered in pines.
THE FACTS
Molesworth Station is at risk of being overrun by wilding pines.
Planting pines for carbon credits could destroy native biodiversity and erase history.
Peter Young urges addressing the existing wilding pine issue before considering new plantations.
I remember those frosty Tarndale mornings when the ice was so thick it felt like the world had turned to glass. We’d saddle up in the dark, leather creaking as we mounted our horses, their hooves crunching through frozen tussock on the ride out. The sun, yet tocrest, cast a pale glow over the southern sky and marked the beginning of another epic Molesworth day.
It would take us 45 minutes just to reach the country we needed to muster. Then the work began: running dogs across steep faces, pushing cattle out of gullies and into mobs that we would drive across the vast, open landscapes. The scale of it was staggering and demanded everything of us. We worked hard, returning at the end of each day to a fire that fed us, warmed us and provided comfort as we shared a beer with the stories of the day.
Life at Molesworth was simple, raw and rewardingly honest.
It was 1978 when, as a restless 17-year-old with a hunger for open space and adventure, I left school and headed south to Molesworth Station. At 180,787ha (447,000 acres), it was New Zealand’s largest station, in the northeast corner of the South Island and, back then, running around 9000 cattle.
I’d read about it, heard about it, dreamed about it. When I hitched a ride in Blenheim on the mail truck with my dog Smoke, I was green, eager and very nervous. After a day’s travel, I reached the homestead at the head of the Awatere River and was welcomed by manager Don Reid and his wife Anne. It was the beginning of one of the most formative chapters of my life – a rich experience I’ve drawn upon many times since.
The Molesworth crew in 1980. Photo / Peter Young Collection
My official title was “cowboy”. I was based at the homestead where I hand-milked the house cow twice a day and learned the ropes of high-country life. Over the next year, I built up a team of dogs and graduated to “stockman”, based at the Tarndale camp. There, every meal was cooked over the fire; mail and supplies came once a week, I learned how to run a team of dogs, work cattle, shoe a horse, and we lived by the rhythms of the land and the weather.
For me, Molesworth was more than just a place of work – it was a rite of passage, a proving ground that taught me resilience, humility and gave me great respect for the land and those who worked on it. While high country isn’t for everyone, the people there – the managers, stockmen and women, musterers, fencers, cooks – are all part of a proud tradition woven deeply into the fabric of our nation’s culture. That tradition, along with the land it belongs to, is now under serious threat of being lost to the incessant spread of wilding pines.
Life in Molesworth was simple but fulfilling. Photo / Peter Young Collection
Often spreading from plantings from decades ago, wilding pines are uncontrollably devouring huge tracts of the South Island’s high country. Millions of dollars and decades of time have already been spent trying to control their spread, and still they advance. It is difficult to express the extent and urgency of the issue when you are talking of trees that take years to grow. Jim Ward, who has managed Molesworth for the past 24 years, has said that if the pines aren’t dealt with, 60% of the station could be covered within 20 years.
Molesworth today is leased by Pāmu (Landcorp Farming) and overseen by the Department of Conservation (DoC) on behalf of the Crown. Ward’s frustration at the lack of action is widely known, but his sudden resignation last month reignited speculation that the Government is considering planting parts of the station in pine to gain carbon credits as part of the emission trading scheme, something that, when asked last December, neither DoC nor Pamu could rule out.
The key issue with planting pines on Molesworth, and anywhere for that matter, is that it is an irreversible act. Once planted, the open land is lost forever – buried beneath a monoculture that would smother native biodiversity, erase the human history, and destroy the sweeping landscapes that have defined the high country. That, in my mind, would be a disaster and begs the question, shouldn’t we be addressing the existing wilding pine problem before we begin thinking of new plantations?
An aerial shot shows wilding pine rapidly invading conservation land on Molesworth Station in Marlborough. Photo / MPI
The control of the wilding pine spread is a massive problem, but Molesworth has endured challenges of this scale before. When Bill and Rachel Chisholm arrived in the early 1940s, it was rabbit-infested and abandoned. The Government took the station over and, through Bill and Rachel’s vision along with the determined efforts of many, Molesworth was transformed into a thriving cattle station. It became a jewel in the crown of New Zealand’s high country, and when their daughter Anne, with husband Don Reid, took it over in 1978, they built on that legacy.
Twenty-three years after that, around the time that Molesworth was handed over to DoC, Jim and Tracey Ward carried the torch, navigating the challenges of stock management alongside growing conservation priorities and public access needs. It was during this last tenure that the spread of wilding pines increased dramatically to become the crisis it is now.
When I worked at Molesworth, decisions were generally made by the people working on the ground, supported by Wellington. Today, it feels reversed. We are seeing distant politicians and policymakers, disconnected from the essence of the station, making big decisions that will affect the long-term viability of the station.
Molesworth deserves better than to be smothered by wilding pines. It deserves better than to be seen as an opportunity to offset carbon and a source of short-term revenue. Such outcomes would be a sad betrayal of the incredible vision and determination of those who worked there before. This station is more than just lines on a map. It represents a way of life shaped by resilience and respect. If we let Molesworth go, we lose its stories, its legacy and our connection to the open space that has helped define our country and our people.
