Conservation spending

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 18

Conservation spending

SUGGESTIONS that the Government is “deliberately under-fund-ing and undermining” the Department of Conservation are nonsense, says the Minister of Conservation, Ms Clark. Her comments come in response to a letter to the Editor from D. J. Round, who wrote: “Various senior Conservation Department officials deny that work on endangered species is affected by recent severe staff cuts (September 16). Even if true, such work is only one of the department’s many tasks. It cares for great areas of country and, as Steve Hembrow has discovered at Temple Basin, now lacks sufficient staff and funds to do so properly. Endangered species are, however, being affected also. “I ask the Minister of Conservation: How many departmental scientists and staff are working now on kiwis, and how many a year ago? How many on kakapo now and then? On Hooker’s sea-lions? Will not Codfish Island be left unmanned now for most of the year, with consequent danger of kakapo poaching? Have not rat extermination programmes been ended uncompleted? Have not local conservancies had to request funds from private conservation organisations for such fundamental projects as kokako surveys and giant weta programmes? Why is the Government deliberately underfunding and undermining the department?” Ms Clark responds: “There is not an open cheque book for conservation spending. The Department of Conservation must live within its budget. Over-spending by the department last year means that this

year’s budget is tight and that the department is having to closely examine its spending priorities. “The answers to D. J. Round’s questions are as follows: “Twleve months ago the Department of Conservation had one scientist and one technician working full-time on kiwi research, and one scientist spending up to 20 per cent of his time on kiwi research. Currently the department has one technician working on kiwi, and is sponsoring research by one scientist and one technician in the Ecology Division of the D.S.I.R. They are working on great spotted kiwi in North-West Nelson. The department is also funding one PhD student studying brown kiwi. “Management work to help boost the population of the little spotted kiwi is continuing with the transfer of juvenile birds from Kapiti Island to Hen Island, off Whangarei. "In September, 1987, the department had one scientist and one technician assigned to kakapo research. The immediate research objectives for kakapo have been achieved and this research is being wound down. Eight Department of Conservation management staff have been involved in three, month-long expeditions in 1987-88 to transfer kakapo from Stewart Island to Codfish Island. “One scientist undertook research work on Hooker’s sea lion last year and this is continuing this year. “Codfish Island will be staffed continuously during the threemonth kakapo booming period, which is expected to start in January, 1989. This is the only

time the department considers kakapo could be vulnerable to poaching. At other times the birds are dispersed and are very difficult to find, so the risk of poaching is remote.

“Rat extermination programmes have not been left uncompleted. Rodents were removed from Breaksea Island in Fiordland earlier this year. The Department of Conservation will carry out monitoring work in October, 1988, and March, 1989, to determine whether the rat eradication programmes have been successful. Monitoring includes study of vegetation and the use of permanent poison bait stations and non-poison baits (apples). These are routinely checked and restocked. “In 1986 rodents were removed from Hawea Island, also in Fiordland. Since then the D.S.I.R. has been monitoring the vegetation, and the populations and activities of land birds, land nesting seabirds, invertebrates and inter-tidal animals.

"The Department of Conservation has never claimed to have a monopoly on conservation work or expertise. Environmental groups have been approached to assist the work of the department in the endangered species area. Such co-operation between conservation groups and Government agencies is not new. The Wildlife Service was assisted by the World Wildlife Fund, for example. Non-governmental organisations have made a major contribution to endangered species work in other areas, such as safeguarding the habitat of the hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, on the Otago Peninsula and in the Catlins area.”