Top ranked athletes through High Performance Sport NZ will be joining the Kauri Res-cue team to treat sick kauri trees on private land in Auckland on Sunday 15 December.

The property belongs to AUT Millennium CEO Mike Stanley and his wife Jane who have been treating their small forest of kauri trees for about a year already, but they have a big job on their hands, so some of the athletes are pitching in to help.

On the treatment team will be Eliza McCartney (pole vault) and Molly Meech (sailing) accompanied by 6 other athletes and the HPSNZ Athlete Life team as one of the High Performance Sport NZ community ‘Give Back’ initiatives. They will be joined by Kauri Rescue Ambassadors who will teach them how to monitor and treat the trees for kauri dieback disease with phosphite, which has proved effective at slowing progress of the disease.

Kauri Rescue Coordinator Dr Mels Barton is managing the event and says “we’re de-lighted that these high profile athletes are keen to take time out from their training to help with our project. We have had a huge amount of volunteer support from the com-munity to assist landowners with treating their trees and that really inspires our partici-pants to continue monitoring how the trees respond, so we can learn more about the effectiveness of the treatment”.

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