No silver bullet alternative to 1080 use

Sunday, 19 March 2017

​Finding an alternative to 1080 is the key to ridding the country of the green toxin, but if there's a silver bullet out there, no one's found it.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters last week said he will end the six decades of 1080 use in New Zealand as soon as possible if his party forms part of the next government.

Experts, however, weren't impressed by the party's four pest control initiatives to replace its use. 

'Clearly it isn't working,' Peters said when announcing the policy on Wednesday. 'Clearly it is causing serious harm to our native species, our people, our ecosystem, our environment, and our international reputation, and clearly something else has to be done.' 

**READ MORE:

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* Minister announces 1080 drops across the country

* 1080 rained down on us and river, says fishing guide

* 'Biggest fraud in NZ history': 1080 drops to start near Queenstown**

His plan is to resource ground-based pest-control measures, fund urgent research into 1080 alternatives, halt aerial drops until accurate surveys of pest and native populations are done, and develop economies around harvesting of fur and meat.

But Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell said all those ideas have been tried and tested. Three of them are happening already and one of them - a fur and meat trade - doesn't work.

'They never knock the number of possums down low enough to make a real difference for our native plants and animals,' Hackwell said.

Groups like Forest and Bird regularly undertake ground-control measures like trapping, but that can only go so far.

'The last population of yellowhead - mohua - in the Marlborough Sounds at the top of the South Island, there was trapping going on for rats in the area, there was a mast event [high seed production], DOC was doing the best trapping they could at the time and they lost the population of mohua because the rats and stoats just overwhelmed the trapping.'

Ground control is a tough job, he said, and is only feasible in accessible parts of the forest. Back-country blocks like the 300,000-hectare Kahurangi National Park at the top of the South Island, where 1080 was dropped after a recent masting event, need better solutions.

'There is just no way you could ever do that on foot. It is the most remote part of mainland New Zealand - more remote than Fiordland, actually.

'We need more tools in the toolbox. I don't necessarily think they have to replace 1080, but we do as a country put a lot of effort on new pest control techniques. We lead the world.'

Mammalian pests carry bovine tuberculosis and 1080 is used to prevent the country's primary industries from being crippled.

Waikato Federated Farmers provincial president Chris Lewis said getting rid of 1080 is fine by him, but it needs a replacement which achieves the same outcome or better.

'At the moment, there is no silver bullet,' Lewis said.

Baiting and trapping has failed before. Part of the problem is pest control companies struggle to attract and retain staff.

'It's a noble idea, don't get me wrong, but the practicalities of it are the modern workforce wants to stay close to town, connected and at the end of the day, if they are any good at working in a rural environment, they will have a good job on a dairy farm or dry-stock farm.'

The Green Party doesn't like 1080, either, said MP Catherine Delahunty, but the party likes losing the natural environment even less.

'No one likes mass aerial spraying of anything. It's not an ideal situation, but we can't afford to lose our forests,' Delahunty said.

'It's a tool at the moment we can't dispense with, but it is not ideal.'

Finding a feasible alternative is the key.

'I don't think a simplistic approach, which is what Winston has taken, will work. If he wants an alternative for those really tough back-country areas, has he got a plan? And if he has, that's what we need to hear about.'