Dowie Sarah: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 12 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11057. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]12.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Conservation: What announcements has she made on a response to the threat posed by pests to our native wildlife?Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): The Battle for our Birds is all on and it will be the largest pest control operation in New Zealand’s history. On Saturday the Prime Minister and I announced that the Department of Conservation (DOC) will receive $20.7 million in new funding as part of Budget 2016. It is needed because of the extensive beech tree seeding last summer that will trigger a plague of millions of rats and tens of thousands of stoats which breed to eat the rats. DOC scientists predict that these plagues of pests will cause the extinction of at least 10 breeds of vulnerable and rare native birds including the kiwi the kea and the blue duck. DOC will use aerial 1080 poison backed up by expanded trapping across more than 800000 hectares of forests in the North and South Islands.Sarah Dowie: What innovations will be piloted as part of Battle for our Birds 2016?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: DOC is taking a knockout approach followed by a hold down approach to kill the pest plague. Two pilot projects will use gas-powered self-resetting traps which have been developed in New Zealand to hold down rat and stoat numbers after they have been knocked out by aerial 1080 drops. In the Hawdon Valley of Arthur’s Pass they will protect kea. In the Haast region the goodnature traps will protect the tokoeka kiwi. DOC has improved and refined its use of 1080; instead of needing around 20 kilograms per hectare as it used to it now uses only 1 to 2 kilograms per hectare. Biodegradable water-soluble plant-based 1080 remains the most efficient weapon in our arsenal to save our birds from extinction.Sarah Dowie: What evidence has she seen that widespread beech tree seeding is a threat to our wildlife?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Beech trees flower in response to temperature and if a summer is 2 degrees hotter than the previous summer as it was last year it triggers a mast and this one is huge—a mega-mast. When the seeds drop an estimated million tonnes of food falls to the forest floor and an estimated 30 million rats will breed in response to the bounty; so will the stoats which eat the rats. So when the seed rots or germinates the starving plagues of rodents will eat our defenceless wildlife. Widespread and extra-heavy flowering was very obvious to DOC scientists last spring and it began to plan for the response. In the battle to save our birds 1080 will do the job for us.Eugenie Sage: How much conservation land that is home to species threatened with extinction will miss out on additional pest control available through Battle for our Birds?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The extra $20.7 million will be well spent and well targeted on the areas that now have a beech mast—that is up to 900000 hectares. The member can do the maths around other predator control; this is specifically a battle for our birds in areas where beech trees have masted seeded and there will be a plague of rats and stoats. That is a very specific targeted project.Eugenie Sage: Will any of this funding help bring back to life what Forest and Bird has described as the ghost forests of Northland which are collapsing on conservation land because of possum damage?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: For the information of a member who I thought would have this information at her fingertips if she knew anything about conservation and the environment she would be very well aware that there are no beech trees in the areas that she speaks of. I come back to the point—and the member is well advised to listen to it—that it is a beech mast it affects beech trees and we will target the areas where beech trees have flowered and seeded and will provoke a plague of rodents in the battle to save our birds.Eugenie Sage: Is the Minister saying that there is simply not enough funding or not enough political will to save Northland’s rātā tōtara pōhutukawa and pūriri forests?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: DOC and this Government as a whole—and that is proven by the fact that the Prime Minister was with me for the announcement—are very focused on getting rid of predators and pests. We would appreciate the cooperation and support of parties that purport to stand for the environment and conservation and yet ask no direct questions about it. The forests the birds and the creatures that live in our biodiversity and make this nature of ours unique need to be saved and it is a priority of this Government to do so. DOC takes it very very seriously—much more seriously than that member or that party.