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The Outlet Wānaka
The Outlet Wānaka
Restoring Nature’s Balance: The Role of Native Plants in the Upper Clutha with Arne Cleland
What can a humble native plant nursery teach us about ecosystem health and biodiversity? Join us as we chat with Arne Cleland, a passionate advocate for native plant restoration, whose childhood experiences in national parks shaped his lifelong love for nature. Arne shares his unique journey with Pukerau Nursery, where he shifted the focus from exotic to native plants, highlighting their immense benefits in maintaining local biodiversity and ecosystem balance. We dive into the evolving dynamics of farm management and landscape design, as Arne discusses how today's generation brings fresh perspectives on plant selection, emphasizing native species for sustainability. Learn about the critical importance of native plant restoration in the Upper Clutha region and the delicate balance required between historical species and current environmental conditions.
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I think that biodiversity that's around, that's been sort of left, is in some cases what's been, what's survived fires. You know, the fire goes through and it's a plant that comes away again readily. It's been modified by pest animals like rabbits. We have a lot of kānuka about, and one of the reasons for that is that the rabbits don't particularly like it, but anything else that was growing with it they like. So you end up with sort of virtually a monoculture of kānuka. It's important to add back those other species that would have been within that mix. The Outlet, the talk of Wanaka.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Outlet. I'm your host, brent Harbour, and in this podcast I talk to Arne Cleland, who has been active in the Wilding Tree Eradication Programme in the Upper Clutha. We'll explore how his early experiences influenced his passion for native restoration and get his insights on the critical role of native plant restoration in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem health. But first let's check out a local event in Wanaka, brought to you by Liquorland Three Parks there for your next event with unreal deals. The Wanaka Library is hosting Bedtime Stories on Thursday, august 8th at 4.30pm. Make sure you bring your own mug for some hot cocoa and book at the library. More info and all local events are available on the Things To Do button on your Wanaka app. Local voices, local info, the outlet, the talk of Wanaka.
Speaker 2:G'day Arne. Welcome to the Outlet podcast. Hi there, brent. Yeah, yeah, that's great to be involved Now. You grew up in national parks and your father was deeply involved in conservation. Can you tell me a bit about that and how those early experiences shaped your passion for native restoration?
Speaker 1:I guess children are influenced a lot by their early years. So we lived at Arthur's Pass until I was about six. My father was the first chief ranger and I guess living in the middle of the Southern Alps with all that nature around you, you're definitely influenced and it becomes part of you. We also lived in Christchurch and Wellington with his work as supervisor of parks, but again we were often in the bush and we were skiing and things like that. And then in about 1966, we came down to Wanaka where he was the first chief ranger of Mount Aspiring. While I was at school in Dunedin all my holidays were really spent out and about in the national park, holiday work and so on. That would have had a huge influence. I mean, I felt comfortable in those sort of spaces. I guess osmosis sort of has a lot to do with it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would have seen a lot of changes too in those National Parks, right?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Yeah, it's hugely different now to what it was. The infrastructures and stuff were basically not there and so on. So, with new tracks, stuff going in and was, the infrastructures and stuff were basically not there and so on. So well, you tracked stuff going in and you had to pedal across the rivers. You didn't have the bridges until they were put in yeah, oh, it's got a lot easier, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Now you did run Pukaro Nursery as well, so you transitioned it to focusing on native plants over time. What motivated that shift on and how did it impact your approach to landscape design and contracting?
Speaker 1:I started working in nurseries, for I've had about three years working a nursery before we started our own nursery and within those I had, you know, a fair bit of exposure to some native, predominantly exotic plants, and Southland in those days was pretty much focused on exotics for particularly for shelter belts and shelter around farms, around farm housing, not even within gardens. But I could see that natives they were not of the stature of these exotic conifers, but they didn't have the same problems in terms of what the heck do you do with it when it gets big and it's now shading our garden out completely and it's basically an inappropriate tree to plant there, and then you've got to deal with all that. So natives were, you know, generally a lower stature and gave the shelter without the same maintenance issues in the future. That work was in shelterbelts for low shelter or in combination with toiletries. It worked in the gardens well too.
Speaker 1:And then I think that there came the point where there was sort of changing of the guard, new generation coming in on farms. Young fellas have been out and about. They've married the local school teacher or somebody about. They've married the local school teacher or somebody you know. You've had the influence of the wider areas with, particularly with whites coming in, and I found that they were a lot more influential in what happened and they were taking a lot more of an interest in planting on the farm etc. That made a big difference.
Speaker 1:And then your basic principles of landscape design with plants you're looking at form and texture and color and you're mixing all your plants up accordingly. And and to me, a plant didn't worry me whether it was native or exotic in some ways, but I always got the idea that our natives don't have color and depending on how much of a smartass I wanted to be at the time, I would say, oh, I didn't know, green wasn't a colour and get a blank stare. But it was then that you sort of explain more about the form, textures and so on. And so I think some planting gets done very boringly with natives and that's not helped by a lot of development on subdivisions and so on. You've all seen silver tussock used at Norse Inn Cheap as hell, it's really cheap. We cut a thousand of those and job done. Take that one off and it's as boring as heck and it doesn't end up working out very well. So people have become more interested in natives and I'd still like exotics, I mean, I like boats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. But that's the thing too, like when you're planting garden. I suppose it is a bit about how it looks, but you know sometimes how it looks and what you get is not practical at all, is it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, and it's really about knowing how big something gets, yeah. And I mean, you probably don't have to walk very far away from your own property and say, well, that was a bit of a silly thing to put in there own property and say, well, that was a bit of a silly thing to put in there, that's going to create a lot of work. And I mean I see that now around council planting designed by landscape architects, and I look, one look and I think, well, that's going to be a lot of work for the council because as ratepayers we'll be paying for that. And so I get a little bit grumpy about those sort of things at times. Oh, look.
Speaker 2:I get a little bit grumpy about those sort of things at times. Oh look, I get it though. I mean, I remember just all planting around mum and dad's house when we first moved in back in the 70s, and then all of a sudden, hello, you got roots that are picking up all your concrete and blocking out all your sunlight, and yeah, so it really does pay to have a real good think about it. So, yeah, well done, know, well done for doing that.
Speaker 1:Well, the same applies whether it's exotic or native. So yeah, exactly, it's always the right plant to gear out place.
Speaker 2:Now, can you tell us about the importance of native plant restoration in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem health in the Upper Clutha?
Speaker 1:We all know that the Upper Clutha has sort of been, you know, really significantly altered by fires and pastoralism, land development in multiple ways for subdivision or whatever. I think that biodiversity that's around, that's been sort of left, is in some cases what's survived fires. The fire goes through and it's a plant that comes away again readily. It's been modified by pest animals like rabbits. We have a lot of kānuka about and one of the reasons for that is that the rabbits don't particularly like it, but anything else that was growing with it they like. So you end up with sort of virtually a monoculture of kānuka. It's important to add back those other species that would have been within that mix, and this creates a lot of debate about what is the appropriate plant to put in. Do we go back to why it used to be? Because the whole climate's changed, climate's changing anyway. There are areas, been studies of soils and so on, and saying that kānuka could have been growing here, or kahikatea is one prime one which lights damp, wetter sites. You know, you see where it was proposed that it could have been and you think, yeah, well, good luck with that. Horticulturally, that will be your most you know cruelty to put tree in there.
Speaker 1:I also believe in. You're looking at the landscape of where you're planting and it's working with the conditions that are there. So it's a dry landscape, plant dry land plants. If it's a wet area, plant plants like that. Don't try and fight nature. I mean, it's a big enough battle as it is. Don't take it head on. You would go hiding, no problem at all. Again, it's planting the appropriate parts. I think it's important to restore some of the balance within our biodiversity and those areas that have been reduced. What's surviving and it might be Matagari and stuff like that we can add in the other plants that used to be there or thought to have been there. What happens with Mount Iron? What's the future for that? I think now it's a recreational reserve. You know what sort of be added to that?
Speaker 2:The spread of wilding conifers. That poses significant challenges, doesn't it? Can you tell us about the specific ecological and economic impacts that these invasive species have on the landscape?
Speaker 1:The first thing I think to realise is that the species that are bad and we're not allowed to plant in this district anymore the Douglas fir, pinus contortum, this large radiated pine to a certain extent they're all called wilding pines and most of them they're actually conifers. We simplify that point of view so everybody knows what they're talking about. But like the Douglas fir and Pinus contorta, they have the ability, when you look at where they actually naturally grow and the altitude, they can grow to virtually anything you can see from one of them, except probably the highest peaks, any grassland where there's grass, grain tussocks and so on. They have the ability to cover the lot. They can grow to 3,000 meters in their native North American habitat. You look at that and you look out and you see Mount Alter. It could be covered virtually, except maybe the very top, possibly right over the top. They're really aggressive.
Speaker 1:They also come with the issues of they can change all the water flow from the land. They suck up water. There's less water coming out. There's issues for water supply from whatever irrigation water that we need. There's the impact on pastoralism. Suddenly they get less and less grass to graze stock on. So it has a major impact on that. The lack of water has an impact on hydro. So you know hardware is a prime thing there that they need to think about in terms of the hydro company.
Speaker 1:It changes the whole mycorrhizal fungi system in the ground. Our beech forest works off a very narrow range of fungi. It can mycorrhizal and Douglas fir and the other conifers work off a different sort of fungi. They don't mix. It gets displaced. The beech gets displaced and if that mycorrhizal system is weakened that has an effect on the plants, our native plants, growing amongst it. And then there's tourism. What do the tourists come here for? They come to Wanakume. If I'm taking the photo of that old fence post that's growing in the lake over there, then they lift their eyes a bit and look at their landscape. And that's what they come here for to see.
Speaker 2:I just didn't realise how much of an impact, especially on the water, that's crucial to everything, isn't it? And changing the forest flora as well.
Speaker 1:These forests become real mixed age so they become very dense. They really support nothing much underneath and we've heard of native forests or native plants growing underneath pine forests and stuff like that. That's been controlled partly by the density because they thin it to grow the log to a certain diameter etc. So it allows light and ferns and other smaller plants seem to come in with the birds of it in places, but most places it's. There's nothing there. You don't get the canopy trees coming.
Speaker 2:Beach could not compete with that we'll get back to my chat with arn cleland shortly, where we'll find out some of the strategies and methods being used in controlling and removing wilding conifers. But here's a couple of jobs listed this week on the Wanaka app, thanks to New World Three Parks. For when it's your job to do the grocery shopping, gojets Wanaka are looking for an outdoor superstar to join their team Now. You must be outgoing and friendly, have excellent people skills. It's approximately 20 hours per week with the possibility of more. You must be able to drive a manual vehicle and have basic computer skills, and Home Co are looking for a part-time administrator.
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for part-time hours that fit within school hours, have a keen eye for detail and a passion for excellent customer service, then Home Co, an award-winning property management company, would love to hear from you. These jobs and more can be found by clicking on the jobs button on the navigation bar of your Wanaka app. Now it's back to my chat with Arne Cleland. What are some of the methods you use in controlling and removing wilding conifers? Because you've got to get them out there, right you go, it's got to go all got to go.
Speaker 1:We work on a system where we assess the area to a start and we're looking at what sort of density have we got in this area, what age structure, what species have we got, because that determines different techniques of dealing with them as well. Once we've done that, in our area we don't have very many areas where it is suitable for volunteers, not like the Whakatipu area and in particular the Mackenzie country. So we are mostly going to be using contractors. So the techniques hand sawing, a thing called cutting paste, where it can be cut by chainsaw or by hand, and then a chemical gel is put over the cut. There's straight cutting down pines. You cut below the bottom needles, leave nothing green there. It'll die. That's fine. So you've got areas where you can go through and just cut them out.
Speaker 1:When you start getting into other areas where there's a bit of high density or scattered, sometimes we'll be using helicopters and in that there is techniques of skid hopping, where they helicopters basically taking ground crews, popping them off here and there and they cover an area, pick them up, moving around.
Speaker 1:Other technique with the helicopter would be lancing, that, where a person is hanging out side of the helicopter a bit and he's got a long pole lance and they're injecting chemical, spraying chemical around the top of the tree and it's a technique that requires very little chemical but has a really devastating effect. And it's great where you've got isolated trees around and you can cover it relatively cheaply when you've got high density, like they have over in Queenstown. Site. Boom spraying is another op and we I don't think we've got any boom spraying areas here. We are fortunate that we have got the very beginnings of it and we are sort of acting as a preemptive strike. I mean, that's just sort of it's far cheaper to hit it now than wait another 10 years and say, oh, it might have a problem, let's do it while. It's going to cost a lot less you would have to talk a lot with and collaborate with landowners.
Speaker 2:So how does that work? In engaging with them, and you know, to ensure the successful restoration and the control efforts?
Speaker 1:Most landowners are very happy to talk about it and it is talking, it's developing relationships. Sometimes that takes off immediately and it's great and other times it might take a bit more. Sometimes it might take a bit of peer pressure, but most landowners are pretty keen. They recognise they've got a problem. I mean that's what I'm finding. We've only had two operations, one that's been completed and another one about to start, and the landowners have been only too pleased to be involved.
Speaker 1:We offer advice. If they want to do planting afterwards, we can help with that. I mean it might be coming with if we have shelter belts that are in areas that high wind areas that are sort of like takeoff areas and the sea spreads and popping up everywhere. So in some cases some shelterbelts may be appropriate to be replaced at some time. Again, we're going to offer advice about how to go about that and it's not to mean say everyauthor in the district is earmarked for execution. It's really been appropriate. We assess what's the likelihood of seed spread coming from them and in many places that's very, very low. And we're sort of dealing with the big seeding trees and the outline areas which are spreading. They're showing spreads. So the operation on Royce Peak. Recently you could see the trees coming up through the bracken and top. So the seeding trees are being removed and those young ones are getting removed as well?
Speaker 2:What are your long-term goals and visions for native restoration, and how do you plan to address the ongoing threats posed by these wilding conifers?
Speaker 1:Well, with the wilding conifers it's not a one-hit wonder. You don't go in there and cut them down and that's it great. Walk away, because you know three years or so later you see them popping back up again. That's because there's a seed load in the ground. The seeds fly off the tree land it, it sits there and it can hang around for three or five years before it even germinates. We have to monitor for that sort of thing and be prepared to go back, and that's where we're working with landowners. In some places we might be easy to go back with some volunteers just to pull out to help out like that. In other places you wait until you've got enough there to be able to do it with the contractors or helicopter or whatever technique is appropriate for it. But you've got to monitor and you've got to go back, otherwise you'll be back to square one again.
Speaker 1:I mean we take the likes of Stephenson's Peninsula that had a lot of wildies on it and that came mostly came from Lohahu. It was a huge pines there and they seeded, blew across. The seeding trees have been dealt with, trees that seed that's germinated since then has been dealt with on that site and also the credit goes to DOC because they did a lot of work on other areas, on the areas of parts of the peninsula and further up. I'm not sure how long ago that stopped, but that might have been maybe eight, ten years ago, and so what we have here now is what's come up.
Speaker 1:This creates other problems for landowners as seed spreads onto their place that may not be their trees that are actually causing the problem. Now they can say, well, hey, well, now this is hardly fair and we're going to continually get this problem, and I believe that's the case on, say White's East Edgerton Peninsula. It's coming in. We need to ask those questions and talk to other people, educate, but some of those problems might be around for quite a while. I mean, if it's a production forest that's causing the problem and it's got 10, 20 years before it's going to be harvested, yeah well, we've done a lot of work behind it.
Speaker 2:You have, and it's hard to control the wind, right, you can't do that. Yeah, oh, that's great. Well, arne, it's been fantastic chatting to you about this. Thank you so much for all the work you do in restoration. I think it's very important and we'll catch up again soon. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:No, you're most welcome, and it's a whole team effort with everybody. There's a whole heap of people doing it. We're just part of the spoke for big wheel, didn't they? And restoration work getting done by Takaka Noa and others as well, too. On Buzzsprout, spotify, apple wherever you get your podcasts the Outlet.
Speaker 2:The talk of Wanaka. Thanks for listening to the Outlet, your local interview and information podcast for Wanaka. Now, if you have a story or an interview you think should be featured on the Outlet podcast, get in touch by using the contact button on the navigation bar of your Wanaka app. The Outlet is produced and published by the Wanaka app and supported with funding from the New Zealand Public Interest Journalism Fund. All episodes of the Outlet are available in the podcast section of your Wanaka app and wherever you get your podcasts.