28 November 2018

How New Zealand will become predator free by 2050 is up for discussion

Achieving a predator free New Zealand will allow our native wildlife and forests the chance to survive and thrive once again.

The Department of Conservation is asking New Zealanders for feedback on a discussion guide released today, to identify the steps the country needs to take to achieve the Predator Free 2050 goal.

In her 2017 report on the state of New Zealand’s native birds, Taonga of an Island Nation, the then Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright supported the Predator Free 2050 goal because it “focuses our attention on the predators that are devastating our native fauna”, but said a plan was needed to achieve the goal.

Department of Conservation Predator Free 2050 Programme Manager Brent Beaven says, “There is no manual for how New Zealand will become predator free by 2050, simply because predator control on this scale as never been attempted anywhere before.”

To develop the plan, the Department of Conservation has held a series of workshops around the country involving iwi representatives and experts in ecology, predator control operations and community conservation.

“From those workshops, we’ve assembled the principles, themes and ideas put forward into the discussion guide and we’re seeking comments and any new ideas from the wider predator control community and interested New Zealanders, to help formulate a clear pathway to becoming predator free,” Brent Beaven says.

The discussion guide proposes five work streams comprising:

• Mātauranga Māori

• Science, innovation and improvement

• Communications and engagement

• Landscape-scale predator suppression and eradication

• Data management, monitoring and reporting.

It will be available in an online survey format at www.doc.govt.nz/discuss-pf2050 until January 2019.

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