A new Māori-led, national effort to reinvigorate the protection of the kauri has been launched this month by Biosecurity New Zealand.
Called the Tiakina Kauri Programme, it will be managed by Alan McKenzie (Ngāi Tahu).
The kauri, an Aotearoa taonga, is under threat from an aggressive and uncurable microscopic soil-borne fungus-like plant disease called Phytophthora agathidicida, more commonly known as kauri dieback.
McKenzie said that the first identification of the kauri-killing disease was back in the 1970s on Aotea but it took almost four decades before the disease was recognised as a pathogen.
The National Pest Management Plan was launched on August 2 and McKenzie said this would bring together the efforts for kauri protection.
“We expect with new rules and a new policy programme a lot more effort will be brought to bear on this disease.”
The National Pest Management Plan will be allocated $32 million over the next five years. McKenzie said the money was divided into many investment streams and one of the financial aid streams was focused on providing capacity and capability for mana whenua to lead kauri protection efforts at the coalface.
Iwi protection teams
“We’ve seen a group in Northland, Kauri ora, where four iwi have come together under job selection funding and they’ve set up teams for kauri protection and they are doing some really great work.”
“Tracks have been resurfaced and hardened, we’ve put in hygiene stations and we’ve encouraged people to change their behaviour.”
McKenzie said this tree was a part of whakapapa and was an important part of the forest “and an essential component to our way of life”.
The kauri is one of the largest tree species in the world and one of the longest living with one specimen, known as Te Matua Ngahere, estimated to be over 2000 years old.
Results of trying to fight the disease and protect the Kauri are failing due to the lack of compliance to prevent the spread of Kauri dieback and lack of funding and support to be adequately equipt with the right tools to fight the good fight.
“I don’t think that we have halted the progression of it but we have taken a lot of actions that will slow the spread of it.”
But the Tiakina Kauri Programme might slow the disease down enough to find a solution to the Kauri dieback problem, McKenzie said.