Kauri dieback: The battle against the 'biological bulldozer'

Friday, 6 July 2018

State Highway 12, Waipoua Forest, Northland. A group of gamers leave their car by the side of the deserted road and push through thick bush towards New Zealand's most iconic kauri trees.

Tāne Mahuta and other so-called 'rangatira' trees are jewels in a real-world treasure hunt known as geocaching, and not every player appears to know, or perhaps care, about the dangers of kauri dieback – a disease which is fatal to the giant trees and spreading fast.

In geocaching forums online, they delight in the 'bush-bashing' aspect of the game. The raised boardwalks and state-of-the-art cleaning stations are ignored for the joys of wading through streams and creating their own paths through the bush.

Not every player is this stupid, or careless. And when it comes to the mindless sabotage of kauri forests, gamers are not the only ones to blame. There are also the selfie-takers who leave the path to get a better shot of themselves with Tane and the other giants. There are the joggers. There are the dog-walkers – they're the worst.

**READ MORE:

* Tāne Mahuta could soon be infected with fatal Kauri dieback disease 

* Tree disease nears Tāne Mahuta

* Science offers hope in the fight against kauri dieback

* Call to sack MPI from leading the fight against kauri dieback**

'Our surveys indicate that dog walkers tend to believe their dogs have more rights than humans,' Jack Craw says, with a grim smile.

Craw lives in a sunlit bush clearing in Whangarei these days, but he was formerly head of biosecurity for Auckland Council, spending years trying to control kauri dieback in Auckland's Waitakere Ranges. He was relieved to see them closed to the public altogether in December.

He thinks the same should happen at Waipoua, the forest north of Dargaville where Tāne Mahuta (Lord of the Forest) has stood for centuries.

'Absolutely Waipoua needs to be closed. It doesn't mean forever. It means staying out of those forests until we know the status of them and if they're uninfested, then we can let people back in.'

There's no doubt Waipoua is infested. Dead and dying trees are visible from the road, and Craw says his most recent visit a week or so back revealed 'another 40 or 50 dead trees.

'It does look like a graveyard, but it's never beyond saving because if we acted now we might save 50 per cent [of the forest]. It's a bit like dealing with HIV or Ebola. You don't say it's gone beyond doing anything about it – you have to keep doing it, otherwise we lose everything.'

Among all the things we don't yet know about the dieback organism Phytophthora agathidicida, which is killing our national tree in its thousands, there is one thing we do know; humans are the main reason for its rapid spread. The bug is soil-borne, and left alone it spreads at a glacial pace. But picked up on on the boots of a tramper, or the hooves of a wild pig, it can be carried kilometres from the original source of an outbreak.

Authorities have not done a very good job of getting this point across to the public, Craw tells me. But would Kiwis follow the rules anyway?

'We did surveys in the Waitakere ranges of the different types of people who walk through forests, and it showed that tourists were amazing. You put up a sign saying wash your boots, and they'd do it. They look at the sign and they do it. New Zealanders don't do that. They need to be told, why do I have to do it?

'We don't like being told what to do. If someone says here's your rules, we normally show them the middle finger. But New Zealanders will engage if we understand why, rather than just being told.'

It's been a long road to this point. The first nationwide response to kauri dieback was planned in 2009. Experts say that after a good start, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has 'dropped the ball' in recent years. Inaction, or lack of urgent action, has led to crisis point almost 10 years later.

Amanda Black from the Bioprotection Research Centre at Lincoln University paints a very grim picture.

'Waipoua is now beyond science. You don't need surveys, you can just see it with your eyes.

'MPI are shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. They're talking about a National Pest Management Plan now, but that's at least two years away. These places [like Waipoua] maybe have six months left, 12 months if you're lucky.'

A National Pest Management Plan would formalise the response, nationwide, under the Biosecurity Act 1993. It's central government's way of bringing all camps together in a co-ordinated push to eradicate the threat.

Black says authorities should be looking at every possible urgent fix.

'It's come to a point where we need a crisis management plan. We need to look at every possible prophylactic they can find. They should be removing all diseased trees. They need to take drastic action in Waipoua.'

MANY QUESTIONS, BUT FEW ANSWERS

It's 10 degrees on Tuesday evening, in a chilly hall at the Barge Showgrounds in Whangarei. In coats, scarves and beanies, about 20 locals and interested parties have gathered for a hui on the Kauri Accelerate Programme. The hui is one of seven planned around the country to gather community feedback. This polite, halting korero does not look like 'drastic action'.

Officials from MPI and DoC give a welcome, and an outline of the problem. They explain that a new independent panel has been set up to look at what should be done. They call for questions from the floor.

There are plenty of questions, but bizarrely, none of the officials seem to be able to answer them. So little is known about kauri dieback, apart from the very basics of the disease. This leads to long pauses after the questions are asked, and pleas to the rest of us, to see whether anyone in the audience might be able to answer. Several people stand and give their own theories. One man, who claims to have been brushed aside by officials for years, says feeding the trees with Boron will save them. It might be a crackpot theory – or it might be absolutely spot-on. Nobody knows.

There is research underway, but precious little has been published.

At Plant and Food Research in Havelock North for example, tree pathologist Ian Horner is six years into a trial that injects sick kauri trees with phosphite. It's not a cure, but a single dose does appear to stop the disease from killing the tree for at least a few years. Some in the bioscience community think Horner's phosphite should be used immediately in Waipoua and other kauri dieback hotspots. But Horner's trial missed out in a recent funding round. Horner says diplomatically that funding is 'very competitive.'

Amanda Black is powering on with her own research into the use of traditional Māori bioscience, but says that even if everything went exactly to plan and they were able to find a biochemical cure, they'd need a drug company to make it, and that could be two years away. Just this week a PhD student under her watch found that pine forests could be reservoirs for kauri dieback, incubating and spreading the disease. She says this was scary stuff given the government's Billion Trees programme and its emphasis on commercial forestry, including radiata pine.

Black, clearly frustrated, says New Zealand's competitive research model – where individual teams of scientists beaver away inside separate Crown Research Institutes – is one of the major roadblocks we face in saving kauri. While CRI business managers protect their intellectual property, scientists are being gagged. She claims MPI asked her to review all kauri dieback science three years ago and then told her not to tell anyone the results.

Without collaboration, says Black, how can scientists know what has already been proved?

'We could all be working on the same things, and how would we know?'

She cites the example of CRI Scion Research in Rotorua, which she says had been working for 'five or six years' on whether the sanitiser used to clean the public's shoes in those forest track wash-stations was effective or not. Black asked them for their results and got a 'cagey response'. Most recently she heard they'd run out of money.

Money, or the lack of it, is a big pain point in the kauri crisis.

Forest and Bird reviewed the funding available for kauri dieback and found there was $100,000 a year available for research, from a total of $20 million allocated by MPI to fight the disease. By contrast, there has been $500m for the kiwifruit disease PSA, it says. It was difficult even getting the information out of MPI, and in the end Forest and Bird couldn't tell how much of the $100,000 had been spent, and on what. Scientists are now looking for the dollars wherever they can find them – Black's work, for example, is funded by a grant from the National Science Challenge competition.

'We need a much more co-ordinated approach,' says Black. 'It's dog-eat-dog when it comes to funding, and that holds back progress.'

MPI's manager of recovery and pest management John Sanson says he rejects 'any suggestion that in some way we discourage scientists from speaking to other people'.

However, agreements are signed around how and when information is released, he says.

'This process, agreed by both parties, is in place to uphold the quality and validity of the information before it is released more widely.'

WATCHING THEIR TAONGA DIE

So little co-ordination, so much frustration. At the very centre of the storm is the mana whenua, the iwi Te Roroa, who have kaitiakitanga (guardianship) over the Waipoua forest. While scientists argue and bureaucrats stall, Te Roroa are watching their taonga die.

We meet Te Roroa's Science Advisor, Taoho Patuawa, on the road opposite the entrance to Tāne Mahuta. There is a new, roofed wash-station to cleanse visitors' shoes as they enter and exit, and along with raised boardwalks in place of the old muddy tracks, this makes Tāne Mahuta the best-protected kauri tree in the country.

But Patuawa is about to show us something shocking - something he's not told any member of the public or the media before. Leading us to the end of the boardwalk, he points to a young tree, a 'ricker', 10 metres into the bush. The tree is clearly dying – two weeks ago three out of four soil samples taken from it tested positive for kauri dieback.

He swings us around 180 degrees and there, in direct line of sight and 60 metres away from the dying tree, is Tāne Mahuta.

'What we don't know, is how far under the ground Tāne's roots are spread,' Patuawa explains. Tāne Mahuta has not been confirmed as infected, but its roots could reach to the dying tree or beyond. Research has shown that the kauri dieback organism can spread through water and is attracted to tree roots.

The implications for a New Zealand icon are chilling.

Te Roroa has not been sitting on their hands, but this latest find has rocked them.

'This has steeled me into action,' says Patuawa.

'We're working with the best scientific minds to find a solution. This is our moment to come together. The past needs to wash away and we all need to come up with a good way to protect that tree.'

This week Te Roroa will give its plan to DoC; a plan to take soil and DNA samples in a ground survey of Waipoua, similar to those that helped bring about the closure of Auckland's Waitakere Ranges.

Patuawa agrees with Jack Craw that this must be the next, urgent step in the fight to save at least part of the Waipoua forest. This is something iwi have been asking for, for a number of years, he says. He told DoC several weeks ago about the infected ricket kauri, and says they have 'sat on the information'.

'We are really encouraged by what the new Minister of Conservation (Eugenie Sage) has been saying,' says Patuawa, 'and we have a great relationship with the local DoC office. It's somewhere in the middle that things (are going wrong).'

DoC's Northern North Island regional manager Sue Reed-Thomas tells me she is 'surprised to hear' that iwi feel the relationship has broken down at regional level. She says she has had 'verbal advice' about the infected tree near Tane Mahuta, but has not received anything in writing.

She admits that no-one from DoC has asked to see the scientific testing results.

'It's true, there has not been any soil sampling in Waipoua, because soil sampling could cause more damage. The risk has to be weighed up like any other,' she says.

'When we first realised the soil-borne nature of the disease we put the effort into upgrading the tracks, and the cleaning stations.

'We've done as much as we can in the absence of the science to prove how to cure or prevent the spread of kauri dieback.'

Reed-Thomas says DoC is open to funding Te Roroa's soil mapping plan, but it won't happen straight away. It's much too risky to disturb wet winter soil, with a disease that likes to spread in muddy conditions.

Most of the scientists and kauri dieback experts - if anyone can be an expert of a mostly mysterious disease - say DoC has been doing its best, considering what it's got to work with.

DoC Director General Lou Sanson agrees that saving kauri must be a priority.

'These trees are so much to all New Zealanders, but particularly to Māori,' he says.

He understands iwi and the scientific community think MPI and DoC have not been doing enough, but describes national biosecurity infrastructure overwhelmed and under siege; kiwifruit PSA, Mycoplasma Bovis, kauri dieback and more, all hitting at once. No sooner had DoC redeployed 350 personnel to tackle myrtle rust, than this latest crisis was upon them. It's been one thing after another.

Of kauri dieback, he says: 'These are some of the most devastating pathogens in the world. It's like a biological bulldozer, and it's not just a New Zealand problem. Fifty per cent of all the ancient baobab trees in Africa have been lost.

'If we can solve this, we can help Australia, Africa, Italy. That's the kind of leadership I want to provide.'

MPI does not get off quite so lightly. Everyone Stuff has spoken to is sharply critical of the ministry's approach to the crisis.

But Lou Sanson says the two organisations are 'joined at the hip' in their efforts, and progress will be made. Next week it's flying bioscience experts from all over the country to Auckland for a hui to share information.

MPI's John Sanson says he struggles to understand comments critical of MPI's handling of the crisis, saying the Ministry has made a lot of progress over the last four years.

The Accelerating Protection for Kauri project will deliver a national pest management plan for kauri, maintain Controlled Area Notices across parts of Auckland and a strategic science advisory group to provide independent high-level advice on the direction and co-ordination of dieback research.

The consultation hui will 'refresh the future direction for managing kauri dieback.

'This will help inform the big picture for managing kauri dieback disease,' John Sanson says.

Meanwhile there is good news from DoC's Lou Sanson for Te Roroa in Waipoua. DoC will look at closing the forest, and Taoho Patuawa will get the money he needs for his ground testing.

'Absolutely, we will pay for it. I'll do whatever it takes.

'Over my dead body will Tāne Mahuta be sick.'