Primary Objectives
(Updated May 2025)
1a. To actively control Banana passion vine (BPV), Old man’s beard (OMB) and other key invasive plants and trees, including conifers, in Golden Bay/Mohua, between Abel Tasman National Park and Kahurangi National Park, by maintaining a base level of control to ensure no fruit or seed producing plants or trees (referred to as zero-density by DOC staff) remain in the future, with the aim to one day eradicate them.
1b. To actively expand our trapping networks and work with other groups in the East Mohua Trapping Collective area to achieve a low enough level of predators that native bird species can thrive.
2. To protect remnant bush and protect riparian plantings in Golden Bay/Mohua from OMB, BPV and other key invasive plants and trees.
3a. To form a buffer zone, “halo”, around Abel Tasman National Park (ATNP) to assist partner organisations to keep the Park weed-free (DoC, Project Janszoon). This includes the Riwaka River to the Marahau area, outside Golden Bay/Mohua, to complete the halo. To form a buffer zone, “halo” around the northern boundary of Kahurangi National Park (KNP) from Riwaka River Resurgence to the coastal boundary near the Anatori River.
3b. Similarly, the East Mohua Trapping Collective area is part of the ATNP halo and has a low enough level of predators that native bird species can thrive, which will enhance the gains in ATNP. This will expand as opportunities arise.
4. To be leaders in innovative and effective methods of community-led regional-scale weed control.
5. To create and/or support neighbourhood weedbusting groups to stop the reinfestation of pest vine and other key invasive plants and trees in controlled areas from infested areas nearby.
6. To be an example of how private and public landowners can work together in a sustained and coordinated fashion to control invasive plants and trees and achieve effective conservation outcomes.
7. To educate the public about the economic and environmental importance of maintaining a high level of control of BPV, OMB and other key invasive plants and trees in Golden Bay.
8. To develop a sustainable source of income to help complete PDVET tasks, primarily through contracted environmental work, philanthropic support, strategic partners, and donations.
9. To maintain our automated ArcGIS data collection system, direct from the field staff, to assist with: reporting to funders, future pest plant/tree management, our expanding trapping network, decision planning, and supplying the Tasman District Council and others with data.
10. To create and assist others with trapping projects in Golden Bay.
11. To assist with and help develop sustainable riparian and wetland planting/regeneration programmes with pest plant control and timely plantings and releases.
12. Work with other groups in Golden Bay/Mohua, directly, or through their umbrella organisations, and other environmental schemes allied to our aims.
LEGEND –
PDVET = Project De-Vine Environmental Trust
OMB = Old man’s beard
BPV = Banana passion vine
ATNP = Abel Tasman National Park
KNP = Kahurangi National Park
Aims of the Project
To achieve a high level of control throughout Golden Bay / Mohua of pest vines and other key invasive plants and trees.
The Project focuses on invasive vines that threaten our native forest and animals in Golden Bay. The vines targeted are Banana Passion Vine, Old Man’s Beard and Climbing Asparagus. These vines smother and strangle our forests forever changing the unique biodiversity of species that live in them.
Through the successful raising of funds for weed control, Project De-Vine has been able to establish a paid team of workers who carry out the vine control work. They work as contractors on private properties in funded areas as well as undertaking contract work on Tasman District Council and QEII lands.
Volunteers assist our paid team during working bees on some properties to support local owners and promote vine control work. Project De-Vine works closely with the Tasman District Council, the Department of Conservation and Project Janszoon, a trust set up to assist DOC to control pest plants and animals in Abel Tasman National Park (ATNP) and re-establish key native birds.
A close working relationship between these groups has enabled better targeting of control efforts with more effective outcomes. By working in the areas adjacent to ATNP, Project De-Vine is playing a vital role in the buffer zone around the park to control the spread of vines. So far, Project De-Vine has moved progressively from the Pikikaruna range escarpment around Rocklands Road, through to a wider area from Birds Road to Rameka Creek.
A third area joins on to the other projects and extends from Birds Road to include all of the township of Pohara to Matenga Road at the start of Ligar Bay, where work is about to begin.
Seeding finance recently obtained extends to a fourth area, from Ligar Bay, via rural properties behind Tata Beach to Wainui and up to the boundaries of ATNP.