With Nelson City Council budgeting $11.5m for weed control over the next 10 years, Sara Hollyman explains how and why it might be used.
On a damp Monday morning, Nelson City Council’s Paul Harrington leads me up a newly built track in Eureka Park near the edge of the Brook Sanctuary. I can hear birdlife around but strangely do not see any.
As we break through from the canopy of trees into the open space, I am faced with what appears to be a wall of vines mimicking the shape of other trees and plants.
Paul, the team leader for parks and facilities activity management, points out a punga tree that has old man’s beard wrapped around two of its fronds.
It’s the only native we can make out and he tells me it will be dead in two years if the space is left as it is.
As we stroll along the track, he is explaining the importance of the $11.5m budget that the council has announced for a comprehensive weed control programme as part of its LongTerm Plan 2021-31.
When I first read the budget, I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of that amount of money being used for pulling out weeds. But as I look ahead and struggle to identify a single tree underneath the thick entwinement of old man’s beard and blackberry, it becomes clearer just how much work lays ahead for the parks and facilities team.
Of course, it’s much more than simply pulling out weeds. Anyone who has ever tried to remove convolvulus from their garden will know, some things just don’t want to stop growing.
This is why council has developed a comprehensive ecological restoration plan to get on top of the problem.
Paul explains that eventually, the trees around us will become so starved of light that they will all die. The entire forest will collapse.
Old man’s beard, banana passionfruit and climbing asparagus are the worst here, as they can climb the entire tree, which then stands no chance.
In the past, the maintenance budget has allowed some areas to be dealt with but it has not been enough to get on top of the problem in the many reserves that the council manages.
A quarter of the Nelson region is reserve land, which is unique from many other council territories.
The Grampians, Brook and Maitai Valley, Botanics and Sharlands Hill are just some of the 10,000 hectares of conservation and landscape reserves owned by Nelson City Council.
The initial weed knockdown job ahead is labour intensive. The team has a range of tools under their belts, including mechanical means and the herbicide Glyphosate.
Council is mindful of how some community members feel about the use of this herbicide and are currently developing a policy around the use of it.
Paul tells me without it, they would need three to four times the proposed budget.
As I stand just a few hundred metres from the fence of the Brook Sanctuary, I look up and can’t find a single free branch for a bird to build a nest in. It’s clear that there is work to be done.
Visit www.shapenelson.govt.nz to let the council know if you’re happy with the proposed budget for weed control.
