Community input into a sanctuary in Abel Tasman National Park
Coastal Abel Tasman National Park showing dying wilding pine on the hillside. Image - Andrew Macalister.
Restoration projects in New Zealand come in many forms. They are considered to constitute sanctuaries when they involve the control or eradication of mammal pests to restore indigenous ecosystems and populations of indigenous species. Sixty-three such sanctuaries were identified in 2012 (see Innes & Watts, Kararehe Kino 20). Many of them have been established in the last decade and are partly or wholly managed by teams of volunteer workers, a significant shift in pest control away from professional pest managers.
One such sanctuary, managed by the Abel Tasman Birdsong Trust (ATBST), reflects the role played by many community-based teams involved in restoration programmes. It is centred on the southern end of Abel Tasman National Park and the contiguous Perrine Moncrieff private scenic reserve. This charitable organisation, run by trustees and supported by a team of 40+ volunteers (including school children), is a partnership between commercial organisations providing recreational activities in the park and the adjacent marine reserve, the Department of Conservation (DOC), and the local community. The trust uses private sector monies, including those from all major tourism operators in the park (who contribute a ‘birdsong’ fee based on visitor numbers) to enhance biodiversity values, particularly of native birds and flora and to enhance the enjoyment of visitors to the Park. ATBST operates under a management agreement with DOC and alongside Project Janszoon, another privately funded trust working in the park. ATBST’s work is strongly supported by DOC who sees the ATBST programme as extending and enhancing its own programmes through work its staff are unable to undertake under current conservation funding.
Two core projects underpin the ATBST programme for 2010–15: the trapping of introduced predators to reduce the likelihood of them reaching Adele, an island of 80 ha c. 800 m from the mainland and recently cleared of predators, and the clearance of wilding pines from the entire park.
The predator trapping programme involves the fortnightly checking of 80 stoat/rat traps and a smaller number of possum traps, along the southern quarter of the coastal walking track, one of New Zealand’s ‘Great Walks’. It also involves the quarterly checking of 20 trapping stations and tracking tunnels on Adele Island. The programme is currently being expanded with a doubling of the overall number of traps by installing new trap lines further into the forest to enhance the effectiveness of the coastal trapping programme. To date, around 1100 rats, 130 stoats and 90 possums have been killed, but two stoats and one rat have got across to Adele Island before being trapped and killed there.
The clearance of wilding pines aims to enhance the native biodiversity of Abel Tasman National Park and is undertaken by commercial contractors paid mainly from funds won by ATBST from the National Lotteries Commission. All wilding pines identified through aerial photography across the park are referenced using GPS to enable contractors to locate, drill and poison them. Pine trees along the main walking tracks are cut down by DOC rather than poisoned to eliminate the public hazard created by standing decaying trees. This winter, contractors and DOC will complete the poisoning and felling of wilding pines throughout all of Abel Tasman National Park. Surviving seedlings will be identified and poisoned in 4–6 years’ time when they will have overtopped the gorse and bracken but before any coning takes place. Poisoned pines are an obvious feature on many of the hillsides in the park but the first trees treated are quickly disappearing into the surrounding forest.
Lesser programmes undertaken by ATBST include ongoing annual surveys of native birds along the southern reaches of the coastal track and on Adele Island, a survey of the lizard population on Adele Island, and the replanting of clearances along the coastal track with 3500 trees and shrubs native to the park. Past and planned involvement directly with DOC includes the reintroduction of South Island robins onto Adele Island in 2009 and the release of saddleback there within 2–3 years. The release of robins has resulted in a healthy breeding population on Adele Island (and nearby Fisherman’s Island), and the release of further robins using birds trapped on Adele Island is planned for 2014–15 on a mainland promontory favoured by park visitors and currently being cleared of predators. Perhaps fortuitously, the mainland trapping programme has coincided with weka and banded rail being seen for the first time in many years in the southern end of the Park.
The results of all of this work are detailed in the ATBST website as well as on billboards scattered throughout Abel Tasman National Park. Volunteers working in the park are readily identified by their jackets marked with distinctive trust logos and provide another ready source of information for visitors who encounter them.
Jim Coleman, Trustee, ATBST