Wilding Pine Control at Pukaki Downs

Pukaki Downs are using the carbon credits from a core area of wilding pines now in the Emissions Trading Scheme to fund wilding control over the rest of their property.

After Lake Pukaki was raised for the second time – by 37m in the 1970’s – there were areas of wilding conifers along the lake front shore, indicating this spread had come from plantings around the now submerged early homesteads.

Over 10,000 mixed pine species, including Pinus contorta, were planted on the lake front of Lake Pukaki in the 1970’s for erosion control by the Ministry of Works.

It’s a very good climate for growing trees. This species is most prone to spreading, and they have, and they are very costly to control. And until now there’s been no money floating around to help landowners with pine control.

The rest of the farm is used for grazing sheep and cattle, organic grain cropping and organic lavender production. Eco-tourism and other forestry ventures are being developed.

Blake is also treasurer of the Lake Pukaki Wilding Tree and Management Trust that has been formed by a number of station holders in the area to try and get funding for wilding control.

Pukaki Downs has a huge problem with wilding pines on its property but the problem has only increased in the last 15 years.

By the middle of last year, wilding Pinus contorta had spread so much that it covered 30 or 40% of the property and had turned into a forest.

Much of the remaining area has widely scattered outlier trees and if left unmanaged, wildings would dominate the majority of the property.

It’s a very visual weed in an area with high landscape values, and the major tourist route of Mt Cook Road runs through the property for about 8km.

The spread is mainly from the lakeshore plantings, and the seed has been blown by strong northerly winds.

When the owners were looking at ways they could self-fund wilding conifer control, the ETS was coming into play.

We talked with MAF people in Wellington who said the wilding pines fitted the definition of a forest under the ETS, and could be entered into the scheme.

The ETS seemed to be a self-funding way to deal with the situation, and provide an income stream for us to contain it, including planting a tree buffer zone and chip away at the forest area over a number of years, replacing it with a different species.

The whole idea is to get rid of the wildings, so we drew a line in the sand surrounding a core area of trees, and put that area into the ETS.

We use the funds from the sale of carbon credits to clear all the outliers around it.

We are planting 40,000 non-spreading trees around the core area to act as a buffer. These trees will gradually form an effective natural barrier to prevent the airborne spread of wild conifer seed.

Gradually we also plan to replace the core wilding area with a hybrid species, a cross between Pinus radiata and P. attenuata, (knobcone pine) which is less prone to spreading. That’s because the knobcone pine’s cones only open as a result of fire, and radiata pine is a low-spread risk for us.

Our core ETS area is 1100ha, which is approximately a quarter of the property. The remainder of the property has wildings spread across it.

Last year we made huge inroads, clearing 500ha. You have to get them while they are young and haven’t produced cones, which is after about five years.

After receiving our first round of carbon credits and selling some of them, we then knew we had the funds to be proactive with the problem.

We were fortunate to be able to obtain help from Nick Ledgard of Scion to do a detailed report which identified where the spread was coming from, where we should start control from and what the high and low risk areas were.

That’s how we came to put the low spread risk area into the carbon sink.

We have followed his recommendations.

This way we have a self-funding project, and last year we employed a gang of nine for five weeks who used scrub bars. We had another crew of four. And we have purchased a mechanical slasher at a cost of $150,000 to slash small trees.

The control work costs us $15,000 a week, and it is going well. It’s pretty hard work for the team.

We also clear the road frontage back to the forest edge in areas that are clear of trees.

We have sold the carbon credits through a broker/consultant. For each of the commitment periods you get an allotment of carbon credits. You don’t have to sell them; you can keep them.

But for us selling them pays for the control work on the rest of the area.

The core area doesn’t have a lot of commercial value, and it has never had any silviculture. It’s quite a long way from the market unless there is a major market change.

We have been looking at making wood pellets and firewood out of them; we’re just investigating that at the moment.

We are trying to use the funds responsibly, not just put the wildings in the ETS, take the money and run.

While we are using the funds to eradicate the trees, we feared others might not use the funds from the sale of carbon credits for eradicating wildings.

Our central aim is to get rid of the contorta species.

We’ve had huge success in the last year and the ETS has provided a way for it to happen.

I would say we are looking at control for another 15 years at least.

Wilding forests are called Tree Weed Forests under the ETS.

Blake has lobbied MAF and ECAN to give an alternative view on how to get funding from the ETS to deal with the problem of wilding trees. This view of using the ETS funds to deal with clearing wildings can be seen as partnering with ECAN. And the submission was received favourably with ECAN amending one of its rules. The theme of the submissions were to:

• use a certain percentage of the income derived from ETS Carbon Credits to be put back into controlling the spread ;

• set the area of the tree weed forest to be the area placed in the ETS and not allow it to expand beyond this area ;

• use income from ETS, plant buffer zones of non spreading species to contain seed spread ;

• replant the existing forest into a non spreading species over time and enter this new forest of non spreading trees into the ETS to further fund the programme ;

• use the money from ETS to fund the long term eradication of wildings outside the containment area ;

• use income from ETS to pay for mulching machines and scrub bar gangs to make buffer zones and to eradicate juvenile wilding conifers as they grow among the planting of non spreading species.

Blake’s conclusion to his MAF submission stated:

“New, non-traditional approaches to containment and eradication of pest species should be allowed.

For example with wilding pines, changing from a standard policy of informal

forest management with a focus on eradication, to a new policy of structured forest monitoring and replacement of existing wilding species with non-wilding ones.”

He wanted a move from a short-term focus on eradication of wilding conifers to a longer-term, progressive series of steps that include initial containment, managed harvesting and replacement of wilding species by non-wilding ones over decades.

“If this process is extended over a longer timeline there may be better chance of long-term success plus the project might become self-funding if revenue from environmental services such as carbon sequestration or commercial timber production was integrated into the management plan.

The management at Pukaki Downs has spent considerable, time, energy, money and resources over the years in consultation with other landowners, foresters, scientists, DoC consultants, practical working people and independent business people who specialise in tree and forestry management.

Through this process we have arrived at the conclusion that eradication of all wilding trees is an unreal goal. We have seen first hand that in the face of this unattainable outcome many people with a wilding pest problem simply stop trying to beat the odds and give up.

The biggest obstacle to wilding pine containment is an economic one. The enormity of the problem,(which in most cases in the Twizel area was an inherited one, either from original plantings from Lands and Surveys operations or from wind blown seed scattering), has reduced landowners to despondency.

Millions of dollars are required to create change and landowners are well aware of their lack of ability to effect such change. We have reached the conclusion of creating buffer zones around existing wilding forests with fast growing, non-spreading tree species, while maintaining and managing any new growth.”