Working with communities and sanctuaries – an introduction
This 9.6 km pest-proof fence at Cape Kidnappers around 2600 ha of private land keeps predators at very low densities. The fence is ‘leaky’, so small numbers of predators must constantly be removed. Fenced cells have been set up inside the main block to protect seabirds and tūatara. Brown teal, brown kiwi, fluttering shearwater and grey-faced petrels have been relocated into these cells. Image - Neil Fitzgerald
Community-based conservation is a growing phenomenon globally, and New Zealand is no exception. Sustaining and restoring native biodiversity in New Zealand is increasingly being undertaken by private citizens. There is an extraordinary diversity of conservation and restoration projects underway on the 70% of New Zealand that is privately owned, and there are also many community-led projects on public land. This issue of Kararehe Kino features aspects of vertebrate pest research in these settings.
Restoration practitioners include iwi, wealthy benefactors, community trusts and private landowners. There are now 3,500 Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenants covering 96,000 ha of land, mainly in farmed environments, and 199 Ngā Whenua Rahui kawenata (covenants) on Māori land covering 170,000 ha. The New Zealand Landcare Trust works with more than 150 groups to improve the sustainability of landscapes. There are 62 site-focussed ‘biodiversity sanctuaries’ that seek to control multiple pests to restore ecosystems. Their combined area – 56,000 ha – is larger than that of all pest-free islands but still only 0.2% of New Zealand’s land area. Partnerships are the norm, e.g. between practitioners and the Department of Conservation (DOC), Regional and City Councils, corporates and iwi.
No sanctuaries employ their own researchers. Yet there are a myriad of questions and uncertainties about how sanctuaries and restorations of various kinds should be managed. What should their goals be? What science principles should underpin their management? What outcomes should be measured to assess the project’s success? What habitats and land area do different threatened species need when translocated into these places? How are ecological interactions between newly introduced species managed? Are predator-proof fences worth the upfront cost? Should we worry about mice, which frequently are the only mammals remaining in, or reinvading, fenced sanctuaries?
There is also increasing realisation that sanctuaries must be sustainable socially as well as ecologically. A lot has been learned about why people choose to be involved in restoration projects, and what the key factors are that make projects successful. The late Diane Campbell-Hunt who wrote cogently on New Zealand sanctuaries argued that such participants have a “shared perception of ecological loss, together with the motivation to act in the landscape that has meaning for that community”. Communities are very diverse, and so are the needs and aspirations of different people. Sanctuaries have to be conceived, established and then maintained in the long-term, perhaps under different management.
Finally, the future of New Zealand restoration is undoubtedly large-scale. There are many reasons for this. First, both native biota (e.g. kererū and the seeds they disperse) and some of their predators (e.g. stoats) move tens of kilometres, heedless of legal boundaries, in their daily or seasonal foraging. Movements are even greater at some times of year, such as when young animals disperse from their birthplace to where they will breed. Second, vertebrate populations must remain large to be genetically healthy and numerically safe, which in turn demands large-scale pest control – often spanning tens of thousands of hectares. The apparently haphazard ‘placement’ of different restoration projects across large landscapes demands a better understanding of how they fit together, both ecologically and in terms of national prioritisation. Furthermore, there is increasing pressure from government for DOC to incorporate community-based conservation efforts into their conservation planning efforts, but this is not a trivial exercise.
Landcare Research works with restoration practitioners to investigate many of these questions. This issue of Kararehe Kino highlights recent vertebrate pest research undertaken with communities of many kinds, from urban to rural, drylands to islands, and from very small scale to very large. The common theme among the articles is that communities and agencies operating together can make a real difference to biodiversity condition in the places where they choose to work.