Call to sack MPI from leading the fight against kauri dieback
There is no cure for kauri dieback disease, and each infected tree will die.
The government agency tasked with managing kauri dieback should be removed from the post after a decade of failure, an environmental group says.
The Tree Council secretary Dr Mels Barton told a select committee hearing on May 10 the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) should be removed from the task.
"They have failed to procure research and answer basic questions," she said.
"Ten years on we still need effective tools to control the disease and the environment: Reliable disinfectant and hygiene stations, early detection tools and surveillance of the location and spread of the disease."
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Kauri dieback has spread through large forests, and earlier this month the Waitākere Ranges in West Auckland were closed to the public – with the exception of 23 tracks – in an effort to beat the disease.
MPI director-general Martyn Dunne, in his submission to the select committee, said about $865,000 was spent each year since 2014 to build knowledge and operational tools to fight kauri dieback.
"Programme research has focused on building the foundations required for ongoing management, including: identifying and understanding kauri dieback disease and how it spreads, developing surveillance and diagnostic tools and methodologies, developing ways of managing the disease, undertaking baseline surveillance to determine disease presence, and developing a behaviour change campaign."
Barton said that MPI had also not communicated well, failed to meet its strategic outcomes and had not been transparent with where it had spent its kauri dieback funding.
To fight a biosecurity threat, the answers were needed to four questions, she said: "You need to know what it is, where it is, what else it infects and how do you kill it."
The only one of these properly answered in the past decade was what the disease was: phytophthora agathidicida, she said.
The Kauri Project artist Chris McBride and The Tree Council's Dr Mels Barton outside a select committee hearing on kauri dieback, at the Sudima hotel near Auckland Airport.
Barton wanted a community trust model installed to tackle the disease instead, as there was a "total lack of trust" in MPI's "top down model".
"And you cannot mend that by just rebranding MPI, which is what the Government has just done."
Dunne said MPI's new project Accelerating Protection for Kauri would "refresh the strategy" from July 2018, fast-track improvements and develop a National Pest Management Plan within a year and a half.
A Kauri Dieback Strategic Science Advisory Group had now been established, he said.
Kauri dieback in the Auckland's Waitākere Ranges.
Three Māori groups also spoke to the select committee against MPI's communication and handling of the issue: Tangata Whenua Rōpu, the Māori Biosecurity Network, and iwi Te Kawerau ā Maki.
Dr Amanda Black of Lincoln University spoke for the Māori Biosecurity Network, formed two years ago to give Māori a voice in biosecurity.
She said the Kauri Dieback Programme did not know how to leverage research, and what it did was disconnected and needed better monitoring and outputs.
Dr Nick Waipara, speaking with Forest and Bird, told the select committee the science community was frustrated about many aspects of the dieback response.
For example, the Sterigene spray used to clean footwear had not been properly tested to see to what extent it killed the disease, he said.
"That's been a research priority for nine years, and I could get my undergrad student to do it."
Scientists say it has not yet been proven to what extent Sterigene kills kauri dieback oospores, pictured, but using the spray is better than not.
In MPI's submission, Dunne said a 2013 Independent Quality Assurance New Zealand review found that "good progress had been made to address a complex issue".
The National government allocated $26.5 million to fight the disease in 2014, with $21.6m of that going to the Department of Conservation (DOC) to fight the spread of the disease, including improving its tracks.
The Kauri Dieback Programme now got $1.2m from the Crown each year, and another $700,000 from councils, DOC and donations.
In the 2016-2017 year, $155,419 was spent on engagement, $664,132 on managing the programme, $924,170 on building knowledge and tools, and $234,76 on operations.
Dunne said DOC and councils were expected to engage with Māori on a local level, and to do the work on the ground, such as improving tracks and putting in cleaning stations.
The programme faced some "major challenges" at the moment, with high levels of disease spread, the public often not using hygiene stations properly, a limited toolkit to fight the disease, an inconsistent national approach and fragmented science, he said.
- Stuff
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