Contact: Barry Weeber, Senior Researcher 04-3857-374, 026-622-7369; Eric Pyle, Conservation Manager 04 3857-374, 025 227 8420

Forest and Bird today welcomed the changes proposed to the Marine Reserves Act announced by the Minister of Conservation, Sandra Lee.

Forest and Bird Senior Researcher, Barry Weeber, said the streamlining of the Act and the ability to create reserves throughout New Zealand’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone were among the most significant advances announced by the Government.

Mr Weeber said these changes should make it easier to establish more marine reserves as part of a network of areas.

“The removal of the requirement to get the consent of other Ministers is welcomed. The Minister of Fisheries does not need the consent of the Minister of Conservation in setting fisheries catch limits, so why should the Minister of Conservation need the consent of the Minister of Fisheries to establish marine reserves?”

Forest and Bird expects these changes to have bipartisan support, given the National Party’s commitment to establishing nine marine reserves over the next 3 years.

As part of its "I love marine reserves" campaign, Forest and Bird is calling for marine reserves to be established over 20% of the marine area.

“Marine reserves are some of the most popular natural areas for New Zealanders’ to visit. The problem is we don’t have enough of them”.

Contact: Karli Thomas, Biosecurity Awareness Officer, Tel: 04 385 7374; Sarah Gibbs, Northern Conservation Officer, Tel: 025 205 7042.

Forest and Bird is calling for a ban on pet ferrets, after five ferrets were taken to Great Barrier Island recently.

Great Barrier Island is free of ferrets, making it a relatively safe haven for some of New Zealand's threatened native species including brown teal, kaka and fernbirds. The introduction of ferrets to the island would be a conservation disaster.

Forest and Bird's Biosecurity Awareness Officer, Karli Thomas, says that the people who took their pet ferrets to Great Barrier Island should be prosecuted. The Department of Conservation must put in place a complete ban on pet ferrets to remove this threat to our precious offshore islands.

"This incident shows exactly why ferrets must not be kept as pets," Ms Thomas says.

Ferrets are a vicious predator of many of our native birds, particularly ground-nesting birds such as brown teal, penguins and kiwi. Unlike their smaller relatives, stoats, ferrets are capable of killing an adult kiwi. Ferrets also engage in 'spree killing', where they slaughter more prey than they can eat at one time.

"If even one desexed pet ferret got loose on a conservation island it could be a 'ferret in the chicken coup' scenario - but it would not be chickens, it would be our endangered native birds," Ms Thomas says.

The Department of Conservation has already undertaken public consultation on what to do about pet ferrets, and the public response was a resounding call for a complete ban - 77% of respondents supported this option.

"It is time for the Minister of Conservation to heed public concern and put in place a ban on pet ferrets. Our native species deserve that protection."

Forest and Bird says that aerial spraying of Painted Apple Moth is the best option currently available, but it should be used as part of an integrated campaign to eradicate this moth.

Forest and Bird’s Waitakere Chairperson and professional entomologist, Dr Peter Maddison, says that it is vital that immediate action is taken to eradicate the painted apple moth. Painted apple moth is native to Australia and has the potential to devastate New Zealand native ecosystems, as well as costing millions of dollars to horticulture, forestry and agricultural industries.

“Unless we want an environmental and economic disaster on the scale of the introduction of possums into New Zealand, we cannot afford to sit on our hands and do nothing about painted apple moth,” says Dr Maddison. “It is already reported to attack kowhai and karaka trees, as well as many fruit trees, young pine trees and garden ornamentals such as roses.”

Dr Maddison says that an integrated approach should have been put in place nine moths ago. Wattle species are the favoured host plants, so a targeted programme of wattle removal would have slowed the build-up and consequent spread of the moth, as well as removing an environmental weed. He warned months ago about the likely spread of the painted apple moth in the weed-infested motorway and rail corridors. “This work should have been coupled with work on developing an effective pheromone. It seems common sense to suggest that MAF should have enlisted the help of scientists in Australia to carry out the pheromone work instead of having to do the pheromone development work in quarantine in New Zealand - with greater difficulty and higher risk,” says Dr. Maddison.

“Painted apple moth was recently found in the Waitakere Ranges. The problem is both significant and urgent. While it is regrettable that action was not taken two years ago when painted apple moth was first discovered in Auckland, it is now necessary to use aerial spraying will be needed as part of the campaign to get rid of it,” says Dr Maddison.

The substance being sprayed to control painted apple moth is a bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (BTK). It is toxic to caterpillars and works by interrupting their digestive process. The same spray has been used in other eradication programmes in New Zealand and overseas. BT sprays are widely used on organic crops in a number of countries, including New Zealand. It is not known to affect anything other than caterpillars.

“Forest and Bird has concerns for the environmental effects of the spraying, particularly since there are a number of threatened species in the Waitakeres and on Pollen Island. We support research into the effects of the BTK spray on invertebrates and animals in the intertidal habitat,” says Dr Maddison.

Forest and Bird recognises that there are health concerns in the community and supports calls for work to be done on the medical issues that have been raised.

Note I: Pheromones are chemicals used for communication between animals of the same species and include sex attractants.

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society is calling for a Ministerial inquiry into the Department of Conservation's inadequate controls on air access to national parks and other conservation lands.

The expanding commercial interest in providing "heli-skiing", "heli-biking", "heli-hiking" and "heli-climbing" for tourists and recreationalists threatens the intrinsic values for which national parks and conservation lands are protected says Forest and Bird president, Dr Gerry McSweeney.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) yesterday issued a retrospective permit to the Helicopter Line which landed on an unauthorised site near the summit of Aoraki/Mt Cook to pick up double amputee, Mark Inglis after he had reached the top of the mountain.

Other climbers nearby felt their safety was jeopardised by a helicopter landing above them, threatening them with ice fall and avalanche.

"By law, aircraft landing within Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park are restricted to specific sites to protect the park's wild and natural character, and safeguard the experience of other park users from the noise and intrusion of aircraft," Dr McSweeney says.

"DoC is largely failing to safeguard the remoteness and intrinsic values on conservation lands because of its willingness to issue concessions for other than designated sites, and its inability to control over-flying of conservation land," he says.

"There appears little to stop any climber who can afford it, having a helicopter circling the summit of Aoraki/Mt Cook recording their feat, yet compromising the experience for others and the supposed remoteness of the peak.

"DoC is increasingly reluctant to decline consent to commercial activities, no matter how disruptive they are of natural quiet or wilderness character. DoC needs to recognise that landforms and geography should be allowed to impose natural barriers to human access," Dr McSweeney says.

He says examples of inappropriate air access approved by DoC include:

· the helicoptering of jet boats down the Hidden Falls waterfall on the Hollyford river under a departmental concession. This allows jet-boaters to access the vast wilderness of the Pyke, Lake Alabaster and Lake McKerrow area, which they could otherwise not reach. "In a world Heritage site there should be some respect for natural barriers."

· a helicopter landing concession, which allows tourists to have champagne picnics on the Ngapunatoro ice plateau beneath Mt. Tutuko in the heart of Fiordland's Darren Mountains. "It seems that no wild place is sacred."

Dr McSweeney says DoC needs to be much firmer in restricting aircraft to identified landing sites, limiting the number of landings, and should establish extensive aircraft free areas. Changes to civil aviation legislation would be needed to achieve this to allow DoC to control over flying of conservation land. Under current legislation, the department can only control landings on conservation land.

Dr McSweeney says a major overhaul is also needed of the concessions provisions of the Conservation Act.

"Under the current "effects based" system of concessions management, DoC focuses on the physical impacts of commercial activities. It gives little consideration to cumulative effects, and impacts which are harder to quantify such as; crowding, loss of remoteness, and degradation of natural quiet (the sounds of nature)," he says.