The power of collaboration
Date: 27th April 2025
Much thanks to Farmers Weekly https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/ who are great supporters of the rural sector and its challenges including funding for wilding pines. The recent ‘Funding cuts imperil wilding control work’ https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/news/funding-cuts-imperil-wilding-control-work/ features Sian Reynolds from Boffa Miskell who have the wilding contract for Molesworth Station and Hamish Roxburgh who farms in North Canterbury and one of the founding members of the Wilding Pine Network.
Photos: Annette Scott – Farmers Weekly
Sian’s key message is that we really have to take wildings seriously, because they could completely annihilate every landscape we’ve got. They can grow anywhere, and it’s frightening. There can be no half measures, because wildings don’t share. As soon as wilding pine seedlings produce cones, they become a seed source. With some species this can happen in as little as three years. It’s not too long before they are decimating the landscape, dense as a brick wall, lost for farming. They smother habitats of rare birds, bugs and insects, infest grazing land and fuel wildfires. The national programme needs $40m a year to make strides.
Wilding pines left uncontrolled will decimate 5% of the NZ environment each year. Photo: Annette Scott
Hamish says wildings are the biggest environment disaster facing this country. The cost of doing control is less than the cost of not doing it. He advocates burning as a very efficient and affordable method of controlling wildings. He cited several examples, including his own North Canterbury property, where burning has been successful in total eradication. Four farms in the Amuri [North Canterbury] Range Tree Trust are using this method with pre-burn MET (metsulfuron) spray and fire with excellent success.
With our strategy, spray early autumn; burn late winter-early spring, and seed the following autumn after the spray residue has abated. Nature doesn’t seed in the spring; she seeds in the autumn. We work with nature, not against her.
Posted in: News