Kauri dieback disease: Auckland Council's park rangers take it one step at a time

Saturday, 27 July 2019

With many of Auckland's kauri forests closed to visitors, Stuff takes a look at how rangers are upgrading forest walking tracks to protect our kauri trees.

With many of Auckland's favourite walking tracks closed to protect against the spread of kauri dieback disease, Brad Flahive heads into the bush to see how park rangers are working to reopen them.

Under the canopy of Auckland's Wenderholm Regional Park, a group of rangers are taking the responsibility of protecting New Zealand's endangered kauri one step at a time.

In fact, Auckland Council's park rangers literally make a metre-by-metre assessment as they work their way down the Maungatauhoro Te Hikoi track.

Consultant engineers and bio-security specialists help the rangers finalise the micro-plans to protect the track from spreading phytophthora agathidicida, commonly known as kauri dieback.

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Raised box steps are one method of keeping our muddy feet from spreading the lethal dieback disease.

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The team begin at the top, via helicopter, and work down the hill, mitigating the risk of infection with dry-footing measures.

Stuart Leighton, senior ranger at Wenderholm Regional Park

'The disease is a tiny organism we can't see and is moved through soil,' says Stuart Leighton, a senior ranger at Wenderholm.

'What we are trying to achieve is a dry-foot standard to prevent dieback from spreading to other tracks through the mud picked up on people's shoes.'

Almost 100 tracks in the forested areas of the Waitākere Ranges remain closed to the public.

Leighton says there are a range of dry-footing measures used, depending on how close existing walking tracks are to a kauri tree.

'We can either use a geocel product which is a barrier that we pack gravel over or we can use boardwalks and box stairs - which is what we are building up on here at Wenderholm.'

Essentially the plan is to make it easy for walkers to clean their shoes and equipment and stop the disease spreading.

'If you have a soft clay track, with 10,000 people walking over it, it gets very muddy and the track gets wider as people go off-track to find alternative routes.'

Kauri, which can grow to 50 metres and live for 2000 years, are officially classified as 'threatened' on account of kauri dieback disease.

Almost 100 tracks in the forested areas of the Waitākere Ranges remain closed to the public, as are higher risk tracks in the Hunua Ranges Regional Park.

On the North Shore, more than 20 reserves and parks have tracks closed to the public.

This time last year, environmental groups called the council's response to threat of kauri dieback 'pathetic' and demanded all Auckland parks with kauri be closed.

Leighton says pleasing environmentalists and those who want to walk the bush is the most challenging aspect of the work.

'Everyone who works for parks wants people to come and enjoy these spaces so one of the really good things with the decision to close walking tracks, was the national environment target rate, which gave us the funds to be able to do the work.'

Despite the number of closed tracks, Leighton believes the threat of dieback can be managed.

'A big part of it is changing people's behaviour, just to really start treasuring these places.

'You wouldn't go into someone's house with dirty boots on, it's not a cultural norm, you take them off - so it's really just asking that same routine is adopted here.'