2022 Cost Benefit Analysis finally available – Harness its power….
Date: 24th August 2023
After nearly a year of waiting this invaluable document is now available. Now that funding for the national programme has been reduced by 75%, this cost benefit analysis is a critical document in our work to recover the funding we need to keep the programme on track.
Please take the time to read the document. Harness its power. Get facts and figures out in your community, in the media and in letters and meetings with politicians. Use it to support funding applications.
Page 8 summarizes 4 investment options:
1) Status quo “losing the investment” – reduce funding to $10 million per annum and scale back
control activities to 10 management units. 20:1 Cost Benefit Ratio
2) Minimum “protect the investment” – continue control activity across the existing 49
management units – 34 to 1 Cost Benefit Ratio
3) Intermediate “extend the investment” – expanding the activity to include a further 11 priority
management units – 33:1 Cost Benefit Ratio.
4) Maximum “national control” – the intermediate option plus a further 19 priority management
unit – 32:1 Cost Benefit Ratio.
The results also show that the minimum option “protect the investment” delivers the greatest return
on investment. This is to be expected and reflects the programmes prioritisation of control activity.
and previous investment in these areas.
The analysis also shows that with Jobs for Nature funding ending in 2023/24, the remaining $10 million per annum funding stream (the status quo option) is “insufficient for the programme to achieve control of wilding conifers on a national scale, with control activity scaled back from 49 active management units to 10 over a four-year period. Under this scenario, 42 per cent of the known national infestation would be actively managed while spread and regrowth would continue in the abandoned management units…” This would result in a net loss of $3.8 billion over the next 50 years. While still good ‘value for money’ in the sense that it is better than not attempting to control wilding conifers at all it represents a significantly worse outcome than the other options analysed”.
We strongly suggest that the only option to support is the fourth – Maximum national control. New Zealand’s history is littered with biosecurity mistakes and lost opportunities that have cost us dearly. Wilding pines do not have to be another of these. Maximum national control is the go-to option over all of the others because they would only partially complete the national programme and would leave significant areas of NZ either under or untreated. This would mean the threat of both invasion and reinvasion would continue and would impose much larger costs in future. The maximum option would allow the programme to be completed over all of NZ not just part.
So – LETS FINISH THE JOB. We ask that you read the Cost Benefit Analysis. Maximise the investment and prevent another national biosecurity disaster. Don’t accept mediocrity – support the maximum. Retain the momentum.
LET’S FINISH THE JOB – Check out a great RNZ story from Pete Oswald, Project Manager for the Central Otago Wilding Conifer Group. It encapsulates why we need to FINISH THE JOB:
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