Transcript of Kit Howden – parks and environment expert – discussing Ōwairaka / Mt Albert’s forest in the context of Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s plans to destroy all the exotic trees on Auckland’s maunga

My big role for over 50 years has been working in parks, the last 20 in mostly in the voluntary sector.

A park and especially the urban forest as you see here, is more than just pests and gardens and whatever your favourite recreation is. In other words, we can get lost and only see the trees and not the complete forest.  There is natural regeneration going on here. How about just leave it taking it gently with thinning, and that has always been my approach with forest management.  There is so much we don't know. What you see with the forest here is not just the trees, it’s the soil underneath, and the biggest thing is the understory.

Now, as we stand here in the background we have a mixture of exotics and natives and they make up the present forest.  You will probably find when we look at the details of our wildlife I think the Kereru (wood pigeon), 40% of its menu comes from, in the urban areas at least, from exotics as well as natives. And there is now something growing in ecology - something called “evolutionary rescue” - which is showing how the animals adapt to new habitats.

So, what I am saying is, the issues here are complex when you look at the forest. The understory of a forest is very important. The largest understory across all the maunga is grassland and, looking down here mainly, straight in front of us, is Kikuyu. There is very little knowledge coming out or discussion of how, if the intention is from the Maunga Authority, how to convert that to native. How do we do it?

As far as I’m concerned, the present approach as you look down here, and admittedly this is more of an amenity area, but here it’s maintained by Glyphosate possibly. That’s far from natural. I’ve always gone on the assumption [that] herbicides are necessary, but to get the necessary change in the management so that you don't have to rely on the pesticides or poisons to maintain that verges too much a human-centred human ecological system.

Now, back to the forest here, when you look at the forest, if their intention is to bring back mainly natives, the demands on each area have to be treated separately. And in some areas there may have to be large tree felling, but that needs to be discussed a lot with the community on each area; it has to be discussed how that restoration takes place.

Native reforestation will take decades

From my experience, it takes decades because of the slow growth of natives. Whether you go through a succession process with shrubbery species such as Mahoe, Manuka, and the various Coprosmas, or you get the forest species. These little islands of Maunga are too small be a self-sustaining ecological system. They have to in involve intensive management, even starting with herbicides, as you have just seen.

Also, [see] how close the housing is. And people grow their own plants through here and if you to go across many of the boundaries of the Maunga, many of these gardens (and it is their right) have a whole lot of plants, for instance, Privet. There will be Privet and other things, so what they have got in their gardens there will come in to the Maunga. So, the biggest issue for the Maunga Authority and for even park rangers and mangers is to work with the neighbours, so we get one integrated whole.

At the moment, the way I see around Auckland, we are going through the most massive felling of our urban forest and the Maunga will just be isolated little islands that will require, basically they will be gardens, requiring increased finance to maintain a kind of ideological native cover.

I think we are into a whole new age here with climate change and there are big arguments going on at the moment in ecology with the neo-protectionist line and the anthropocentric ecology issues. These are not being discussed, and they need to be. The neo-protectionists basically say: “we’ve got to separate people from our protected areas. That means from our conservation areas, because people are dangerous, they harm it, they cause harm”. Whereas the anthropocentric people say: “No, we have entered a new age now, it’s now the age of humans”. Fair enough, we’ve messed up nature, but nature is recovering itself and working with ourselves, as long as we take things slowly and study and be more careful”.

Let’s starts the discussion and not go holus-bolus, which has been the New Zealand tradition, to wreck it and then restore it.


Questions to consider with vegetation succession

We here in a bit of the forest, where we have some interesting things happening from my observation. I have seen what has obviously been a deliberate trial planting under a few natives; [there’s] a Pohutukawa, a Totara, a few exotics too. Some one’s done a trial and this is probably typical of trying to get an understory and succession going. The Nikaus have come away quite well; you have got some Blechnums (ferns) and various Sedges, but this typifies what happens because also coming away are some Forget-me-nots, and I pick it up and it’s probably as I saw it a couple of months ago. They have been Glyphosating (herbicide) around here, or probably something more powerful, and you have got a lot of Buttercup coming up.

So, the succession here is, it’s the understory again that is so important. And what is in the seed bank? What is in all the surrounding areas? What is brought in by the birds and things? It’s the power of the new ecology, the anthropocentric age we live in. A lot of these small plants now - many of them are garden plants - are now part of the new ecology, and are coming away.

To try and bring back the [native] micro flora and fauna, right down to this level is an immense job, and far too idealistic not accepting that we humans are now a part of nature and there is a new nature coming forth. Fair enough, you could do a massive conversion, but [if you want to apply] not so much herbicide [then] it’s going to demand a lot of hand weeding to take all of this out, and then we have to stay planting those smaller species down there. That’s going to take an enormous amount of work.

I have even come across some dilemmas…because one of these plants down here is the nettle, the Urtica species [which is important for saving] our precious Red Admiral butterfly (Kahukura). The problem is, the Red Admiral far more likes, because it is more aggressive, is the exotic Urtica Indica, which is a scheduled pest plant. This shows how many of our native species are adapting to the new ecology. And this is why with any reforestation going ahead we need to take things slowly.

There is another issue with forestry and supporting this gradual approach, is that if we take out the large trees, and eventually these big gums have to go, but what effect does that have on the trees you want to keep, such as the Totara or some of the understory coming up. And [what effect will it have on] the wind coming through, because the Maunga do get some high winds. So how does that swirling wind coming down affect what [plants] will come up?

As we have found in many cases, the exotics can be used as a gradual shelter for the natives coming up. It demands more work from the tree climbing arborist to gradually fell it up and then, rather take it away and chip it up, they can make what is called “habitat piles”. These are piles of wood and in the wood all those micro-organisms and insects are chewing down the wood and those piles of wood can be used to shelter little trees coming up. Bring back the great forests of Kohekohe, Taraire, wonderful bird food, which could a supplementary feed in time for the cherries.  [The birds could] eat the cherries, have their first course there, and come across and have their second course with the Kohekohe and the Taraire and the Nikau. So [keeping the exotics] enhances the [food] range for the birdlife. 

That's all possible but it does need this mixture going on and the gradual approach, which will take decades, if not centuries. We sometimes misunderstand in our rush to do things that it’s got to happen tomorrow, but these things take time. Forests take time and it can’t happen in a decade. It take [at least] two to three decades.

What about the birds?

The other issue is, as I have said before, if the intention is to do away with all these big exotics, therefore the birds won’t come because they like the high [trees] and certain species, like the Eucalyptus, do [also] provide food; Macrocarpa are good for the Ruru (Morepork).

I do think the biggest issue is if the intention is to only have shrub species that won’t grow very high, because you do need big trees for the forest birds. To have just the shrub species in certain areas and return the Maunga mainly to non-woody plants and low level plants as you now see across many of the Maunga at the moment [means] they become just bare hills. This might suit the archaeologists and geologists to see the modified forms of those hills. If this is the [Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s] intention then this should be made clearer in the strategies going forward, from what I have read anyway. But to say that they are going to bring back more native life by just having these shrubby species such as even Mahoe, and the Kanaka, Manuka sort of species and shrubby Coprosmas, I don't think [that] will bring back much of the bird life unless we get those forestries going - which will take many, many decades if not a century or so to get to their full glory.

Another in interesting thing we have to consider in urban forests is the whole area of pest and diseases. You know, 50% of the lifeforms that exist are generally parasites or pests on other species. So, if you make one species extinct [then] you make another whole realm of species extinct. This raises another question of these issues we don't know, so I think we again [need to] take things slowly. These new diseases [such as myrtle rust] coming forward are factors that have to be considered in the [maunga] management and also how much we alter an urban forest. Because, if you alter this, you making tremendous changes and only opening up [the way] for more disease to come in and more pests and so forth. 

I have been asked what is the general health and wellbeing of this urban forest here on Ōwairaka? All I can say is that it is a mixture of things that have happened and been neglected over the many years. It all started with some sort of vision with the planting of a mixture of native and exotics. It has been left with some regeneration. When the grazing came in with cattle for many decades, that’s had an enormous impact of the fertility of the soil and everything. With the cattle taken off you now have the regeneration of various things.

So those visions decades ago, you had some managers who made certain decisions. But…in the end, nature will always win if we go ahead under not knowing certain things or ignorance of nature itself - and there is so much we don't know. We don't know much about our insect life, about our micro flora and fauna; we know damn all. Look at viruses. With our own species trying to fight viruses, what about all the virus throughout here [the forest], that will have an influence on these species.

But all I know is, if you disturb a system [then] you are opening it up for more damage. So let go slowly, carefully and consult.

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