Date: 2nd December 2022
A Recent visit to Southland reminded me about the beauty and vulnerability of our alpine ecosystems which are dominated by small natives -plants and animals especially skinks.
Wilding pines and conifers decimate and completely obscure these communities. Low light under dense kanuka is no deterrent. Douglas fir wildings are relentless and tenacious as can be seen in the photo below from the Eyre Mountains below West Dome.
Wilding seedlings rapidly outcompete these communities in which our native plants grow a lot slower and cannot cover the ground as quickly as an invading army of green wildings. Our native ground covers and plants in these environments include lichens and low growing plants that just can’t match the wildings
The same scenario plays out on the summit of Mid Dome where the landscape feels like a giant has had a tantrum with a giant hammer with its giant boulders and rock fields and steeply incised gullies. But amongst this seemingly sterile landscape are small flowering gems like the ones below.
There are also patches of what was once fields of hardy native plants before the invaders took hold. They are stunning with their leathery sculptural leaves hardened against the wind, snow and ice that formed these landscapes. They are also proof of the hard work done by the Mid Dome Trust and their tenacious contractors, landowners and volunteers pushing back that relentless march of wilding trees which grow from the valley floors to the ridge tops.
Bluff Hill/Motupohue is a fantastic example of what happens when a community and an organised pragmatic Trust get together to make a difference. The Bluff Hill/Motupohue Environment Trust (BHMET) is one such example and mirrors the dedication of many groups involved in conservation restoration around Aotearoa.
Bluff Hill is a visual celebration of the resilience and recovery that occurs in our native ecosystems when we give them a helping hand. BHMET felled many large pine trees on Motupohue which is a wind-swept exposed hill overlooking Foveaux Strait. Nature rewarded them with the regeneration of many native species whose seedlings are initially protected by the fallen logs and limbs as seen below.
As the hardier natives grow like houpara (coastal five finger) and coprosma species, the combined shelter provided by these species and the pine debris partner with the recovering soil quality to allow more wind sensitive species such as poroporo (purple flowers), makomako (wineberry) to push their seedlings up along with ferns, orchids and lichens.
Olearia (Akepiro) a coastal tree daisy was flowering when I visited, along with the purple flowers of poroporo (see above). It’s a stunning plant with its shiny green tough salt adapted leaves with furry silver undersides and white flowers with yellow centers but it’s outclassed by the rich pink and crimson bell flowers of the makomako.
Motupohue is testament to the difference determined people can make. The removal of pines along with animal and pest control has made a huge difference to the hill which is going from strength to strength. There are few remnants of coastal Podocarp/Kamahi/Rata Forest left on the mainland and few as accessible and popular as Bluff Hill. Bluff Hill is one of the few populated places where the forest meets the sea providing food and shelter to marine and land animals. Bluff Hill is home to declining, at-risk, nationally vulnerable and endangered bird species: black backed gull, little blue and yellow penguins, Stewart Island shag, mainland sooty shearwater, red-crowned parakeet, South Island rifleman, fernbird, kaka and NZ pigeon.
If we are to repeat this story across all our alpine environments and hills where wiling pines and conifers are we must sustain the gains and not accept the reduction in funding come in 2023. Our argument is compelling and winnable, and the results are worth fighting for and celebrating.
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