DOC plan ‘misses the mark’
Conservation advocates worry that new plans for managing wild deer, goats and pigs have ignored emissions – and treat native bush like a smorgasbord for pests.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) released its new wild animal management framework on Friday after announcing a crackdown in the latest budget, with $30 million of funding for deer and goat control.
Te Ara ki Mua aims to balance the ‘‘sometimes competing’’ values Kiwis hold about wild deer, goats, pigs, tahr and chamois. It set goals of understanding the impacts of introduced browsing animals on native biodiversity and developing management plans by 2025. They would be actively managed while maintaining ‘‘cultural and recreational values’’ by 2030, and would be removed from threatened ecosystems by 2050.
A Forest & Bird report released last year found culling deer, possums, goats, feral pigs and other invasive mammals could let established native forests recover to the point where they sucked in 15% of New Zealand’s yearly greenhouse gas emissions.
DOC said its ideal outcome was one where browsing pressure – the impact of animals eating native plants – was ‘‘reduced where necessary to enhance biodiversity, support resilience and improve the quality of game animals’’.
Forest & Bird chief executive Nicola Toki said DOC was putting out a plan that ‘‘totally misses the mark’’. It did not mention carbon emissions, despite the devastation that browsing mammals caused to carbon sinks. ‘‘When DOC publishes plans that talk about ‘improving the quality of game animals’, it’s clear they’ve lost their way.’’
DOC needed strong direction from its new minister that biodiversity and climate change must be its priorities, she said.
Improving the quality of game animal stocks was not DOC’s problem, and it should be ‘‘sticking to its knitting’’, she added. ‘‘The department’s role is looking after nature, now and for the future.’’
DOC operations director Ben Reddix said the plan for wild animal management had a ‘‘clear objective of reducing browsing pressure where necessary to enhance biodiversity’’. There was ‘‘widespread acknowledgement’’ that deer and goat numbers were on the rise in many places, and that high densities could have a ‘‘significant impact’’ on indigenous ecosystems as well as the poor condition of some animals and the susceptibility of browsed forests to major climate events, he said.