Hello neighbours and supporters!
It has been a very busy year, with many exciting new projects and contacts being made. At the same time the
on-going projects are still happening & receive regular attention to keep the pest vines from re-establishing.
As a non-profit group under the umbrella of Forest and Bird, we have benefitted massively from their local
support, insurance cover, financial administration and more recently logistics support from their head office.
Project Summary
Project De-Vine started as a small local weed busting project, to help landowners, who were overwhelmed
by invasive vines (Banana passion vine (BPV) and Old man’s beard (OMB)). This has grown into a project
with Golden Bay wide, and recently around Abel Tasman National Park ambitions. It is achieving landscape
scale pest vine control primarily in eastern Golden Bay; some 367 private landowners (4760ha) are included
in the project from Wainui Bay to Rameka Creek. 2015 saw Project De-Vine partner with Project Janszoon
and Fonterra to assess and offer pest vine control on properties along the boundary of Abel Tasman National
Park (about 60 with control of other pest plants that might threaten the Park) and the Fonterra supply farms
(102) respectively in Golden Bay. This is aided by a grant from Lotteries New Zealand for one year in 2015
and another two years starting now. Second year control work is starting on 40 of those properties and
another 20 or so will be visited for the first time in 2017.
Other grants have been received in 2015 from:
- DOC Community Fund and Tasman District Council to partially cover the costs of an Operations
Manager and set up an office for 3 years.
Sponsorship of our working bees has been generously provided by:
- Cut’n’Paste, who supply gel bottles for us to use and give out to landowners who attend working
bees - Nelson Building Society
- Motueka Community Board – to assist with the costs of running working bees in Riwaka valley
To date about 222,000 pest vines have been killed manually with many more sprayed. One third of
these are in this last year alone. The vast majority are Banana passion vines (196,000) with 20,000 Old
man’s beard vines and the balance in various others. We plan to kill many thousands more to stop the
spread of these rampant, forest destroying vines.
Vine weeds in New Zealand (especially BPV and OMB) are a major threat to regenerating native forest,
riparian re-vegetation projects, lowland forest on karst and the margins of National Parks and Reserves in
Golden Bay. These vines are capable of smothering low canopy forest, killing the canopy trees and
preventing regeneration of native species. Existing strategies for controlling these weeds have not been able
to prevent their continued spread and increasing intensity of infestation.
Project De-Vine works extensively with Department of Conservation, Tasman District Council and local
businesses.