Tony Wall
February 15, 2025 •08:00am
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.686.0_debug_en.html#fid=goog_166491714Play Video
02:20
Fear kōkako population diminishing in Te Urewera (Video first published 2022)
VIDEO CREDIT: CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF
It was once the site of a “mainland island” conservation project to protect rare species such as the kōkako. But visitors to northern Te Urewera have been shocked by what they’ve seen: rotting animals hanging from abandoned traps; brand new pest control equipment lying in the burnt-out remains of old huts and possums everywhere. What’s going on? Tony Wall investigates.
The creature hanging from the trap looks like something out of vampire flick Nosferatu, its innards exposed and its clawed hands wrapped around a tree trunk.
The fossilised animal, believed to be a possum, though it’s hard to tell, was photographed on the Otamatuna Ridge Track in northern Te Urewera by tramper Dan Lodge in January.
He posted the image, and others showing the burnt-out remains of a former Department of Conservation hut at Otamatuna, on the Save Our Te Urewera Huts Facebook page.
“It was pretty sad to see so many traps unchecked or not reset for the last two years, and the old, locked DOC hut built for conservation staff full of brand new traps … burnt down,” Lodge wrote.
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“This area was once trapped extensively as part of a mainland island project, to protect the kōkako and other birds, so it was sad to see all this effort go to waste.”
Dozens of people have left comments such as “shameful”, “tragic” and “disgusting”.
Te Urewera is recognised in law as a living person and is governed by a board with Crown and Tūhoe representatives.
Day-to-day operations are handled by Te Uru Taumatua (TUT), Tūhoe’s tribal authority, with support from DOC, which gives TUT about $2m a year to help manage the forest.
In 2022, TUT controversially burnt down 29 huts, including DOC biodiversity huts, as part of its plan to decommission DOC infrastructure and replace it with new buildings.
A High Court injunction stopped the destruction, and it was later found to be unlawful.
While the injunction was in place, several huts, including the Otamatuna hut containing DOC biodiversity equipment, were burnt down, in what were believed to be acts of arson unconnected to TUT.
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More than two years later, the remains of the Otamatuna hut lie in situ, dozens of gas canisters and brand new traps amongst the debris.
Lodge used to visit Te Urewera as a child but now lives in the South Island. He and his family went camping in the Waimana Valley over the Christmas holiday period and were shocked by the state of the place.
“There were obvious signs of no maintenance whatsoever,” he told Stuff. “There’s traps everywhere that haven’t been checked, they’re all covered in moss, clear signs they haven’t been checked in years – dead things hanging out of traps, things not re-set.
“It’s sad to see the state of it … with the conservation efforts that had been going on in the past.”
His family did hear a couple of kōkako, however.
Prior to management of Te Urewera changing hands in 2014, the area around Otamatuna was extensively trapped as part of a DOC “Mainland Island” project that brought the threatened kōkako back from the brink of disappearing.
Stuff first drew attention to concerns about a lack of predator control in the forest in 2022.
At that point, TUT said it was doing things differently than before, focusing on a wider area of the forest than DOC did.
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Now, it’s refusing to engage on the issue at all, failing to respond to a list of questions about predator control in Te Urewera sent through a public relations firm that it has worked with in the past.
Stuff asked DOC whether it was concerned about the message that images of neglected traps and the burnt remains of the hut sent to visitors.
It said in a statement: “DOC doesn’t see these images as reflecting the experience that Te Urewera Board and Te Uru Taumatua, as the lead in operational and management of Te Urewera, aim to share with manuhiri (guests).”
But it emphasized that it only had a support role, and questions were best put to TUT as the lead entity.
Kirsti Luke, TUT’s chief executive, told Stuff in 2022 that pest control involved trade-offs.
For example, she said, the biggest increase in kōkako numbers in Waimana Valley came in the early 2000s, using toxins now banned on the New Zealand mainland because of their impact on the ecosystem.
Luke said Tūhoe had access to “high levels of expertise” in pest control, including kaimahi (workers) who’d worked with DOC on the Mainland Island project, as well as experts in local bushcraft and ecosystems.
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The organisation had permanent staff teams, bush crews and contractors working on pest control in Te Urewera, Luke said, and was in discussions with Predator Free 2050 and other experts on “cutting edge technology and methodology”.
Tāmati Kruger, chair of TUT as well as the Te Urewera Board, said in a press release last year that the organisation accepted the initial burning of the DOC huts was unlawful, as there was no annual operating plan in place as required under the Te Urewera Act.
That had been rectified, and TUT would continue decommissioning the huts in a “safe and responsible way”, he said at the time.
New, fit-for-purpose facilities within Te Urewera were part of that conversation, Kruger said.
“There is now a suite of knowledge to help us provide for Tūhoe members and kaimahi [workers], to support pest control and biodiversity work, and to make Te Urewera accessible and hospitable to manuhiri.”
But conservationist Pete Shaw, who used to manage DOC’s Mainland Island project in the Waimana Valley, is damning of TUT’s efforts, saying it has “switched off” pest control entirely.
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He believes kōkako numbers will be “crashing” without intensive trapping.
“They switched off 20,000 hectares of possum control. They just stopped doing it.
“From what I can gather from people who’ve been up there, there’s possums everywhere.
“Possums prey directly upon kōkako – they kill the nesting females, they kill the chicks and they eat the eggs.
“Signing the Te Urewera Act signed the death warrant on kōkako in northern Te Urewera, it’s as simple as that.”
And it’s not just the kōkako under threat, Shaw says – pest control in a kiwi sanctuary at Lake Waikaremoana in the southern Te Urewera has also lapsed.
Stuff asked DOC if it’s concerned by pest numbers in Te Urewera.
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In a statement, Huia Forbes, responsible for Treaty relationships advice and oversight for DOC, said the department supported TUT to lead pest management “in a way that benefits Te Urewera and is in accordance with [guiding document] Te Kawa o Te Urewera”.
She confirmed DOC gave an annual grant of $2m to TUT each year to help with operational management of Te Urewera, but couldn’t say how much of that was spent on pest control.
“The Department does not oversee how this grant is spent, other than at a high level.”
Forbes said DOC was also unable to provide information about the state of kōkako in the forest, as it hadn’t monitored them since 2014.
As for what ongoing role DOC had in Te Urewera around pest management, Forbes said it provided support at TUT’s request and was currently involved in goat control work on the eastern and southern borders of the forest.
It’s understood private conservation groups who want to do pest control work in Te Urewera need a permit from TUT, but none have been issued.
Sam Gibson, a trapper and conservationist involved in a project to protect the whio, or blue duck, in the upper Waioeka Gorge, which borders Te Urewera, says he’d love to work with TUT on a trapping programme in the forest.
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“Some of the rivers in Te Urewera flow into the upper Waioeka … [and] the birds we are supporting to breed are spilling over into those rivers.
“We see great potential in a relationship with TUT to support, if it was wanted, with predator control.”
Gibson is an ardent supporter of mana whenua taking over management of their land.
“It’s not for anyone who isn’t Tūhoe to comment on what should be done.
“[But] it would really be a shame for us to lose kōkako out of Te Urewera, it would be a shame for us to see the slow degradation of the whio population and the kiwi populations.
“I do share concerns that if action is not taken shortly, we run the risk of losing species out of Te Urewera.”
– Stuff
Exposing the Big Game 
A former national park? Was it returned? What a myth. It looks like the biodiversity is not a concern here.