Project Tongariro staff and "wicked weeders" volunteers are committed to conservation efforts. Photo / Claire Concannon, RNZ
Project Tongariro staff and "wicked weeders" volunteers are committed to conservation efforts. Photo / Claire Concannon, RNZ
On December 9, 1982, a helicopter accident on Mt Ruapehu claimed five lives. The pilot and four National Park staff had been testing a new lighting system for night-time search and rescue.
Two years later, a living memorial, the Tongariro Natural History Society, was established in their honour. The society’saims were to care for and connect people to Tongariro National Park.
Today, more than 40 years later, the work of this group continues.
The willows and the wetland
It’s on the drive from Tūrangi to the Waimarino wetland that the problem becomes apparent.
“This is known as the willow corridor,” says Kiri Te Wano, current CEO of the Tongariro Natural History Society, which today goes by Project Tongariro.
Both sides of this stretch of State Highway 1 are thick with a dense forest of grey willow.
“Absolute nightmare,” says volunteer Shirley Potter. “And when the grey willow are seeding you’re just floating through a cloud of seeds and you think, oh, how many of those are going to grow?”
Grey willow is known as an ecosystem transformer – when it invades an area, it completely takes over and excludes native plants and the animals that need them. Cutting it back doesn’t work – you need herbicide and, because of its ability to produce seeds and reinvade, you also need persistence and careful planning.
That’s why ecologist Nick Singers is applying detailed precision to the operation.
Shirley Potter and Nick Singers at Waimarino Wetland. Photo / Claire Concannon, RNZ
In his home office in Tūrangi, aerial images stitched together from drone pictures are marked with the location of each willow tree in the wetland area they are trying to restore.
An area is assigned for treatment, either from aerial control via a helicopter or ground control, in which contractors hand-drill and inject herbicide into each tree stem. After the operation, the images are updated with the GPS marks from both teams on which plants have been poisoned. This means Singers can track what’s done, as well as what’s left to do and how much it will cost.
The wetland area is important for native wildlife. Its lagoons are home to some of New Zealand’s most cryptic and threatened birds.
“The latest population count for bittern is that there might be 700 to 800 left in the entirety of New Zealand,” says Singers. “And so, these areas are critical. And really what we’ve been doing is to try and maintain the habitat in a healthy state so they’ve got somewhere to feed, they’ve got somewhere to nest. And that’s the best sort of management we can do.”
Project Tongariro is working with the Department of Conservation and local hapū to help conserve large wetland areas beside Lake Taupō. Members don’t just battle willow, they also perform pest trapping and replanting.
Restoring wetlands is just one of the conservation efforts the project is involved in.
