Land management protects the region
Greater Wellington’s work in soil conservation and our catchment management schemes have become increasingly important in light of extreme weather patterns, as Wairarapa farmer David Holmes confirms.
In 2005/06, we planted 250,000 trees and poles from our nurseries and now have more than 300 active soil conservation plans to reduce erosion. As well as planting an additional 421 hectares of trees using sustainable management practices, we also completed riparian planting and fencing programmes along 3.8 kms of riverbanks.
Our monitoring work and pest control programmes continue to maintain the ecosystem health of our regional parks, forests and water collection areas. Baseline monitoring of soil health was undertaken and repeat monitoring is continuing to determine any change in the state of the region’s soils.
We also monitor water quality in key rivers and streams and there was no significant deterioration in 2005/06.
Control of bovine Tb vectors (possums and ferrets) protects the viability of dairying, and cattle and deer farming in the region. We have set targets to have 80% of the region under intensive possum control and reduce the percentage of infected Tb cattle and deer herds to 0.2% (six infected herds).
In 2005/06, we managed possum and other predator control over 637,000 hectares (78.4%) of land, including pest control in 74 Key Native Ecosystem sites. In addition, 15 infected Tb cattle and deer herds were reported, with a significant decline in Tb reactors from 81 in 2005 to 33 in 2006.