Two separate reports on biodiversity and biosecurity operations around Otago have revealed increased engagement and a steady boost to the projects underway.

The Biosecurity Operational Plan and Biodiversity Partnerships reports will be going before ORC’s Environmental Implementation Committee for noting on Thursday; with the full reports now available online as Agenda items at orc.govt.nz.

ORC’s Manager Environmental Implementation, Libby Caldwell, says there has been a “strong” increase biodiversity partnership activities and projects – from 6 partnerships three years ago to 12 presently – while within the separate biosecurity operatives paper key performance indicators (KPIs) of achievements have over three years risen from around 30% to more than 70%.

“Overall, a total 47 KPIs were fully achieved or exceeded in biosecurity operations, and we’re really proud to have struck an achievement rate of 74.6%.”

“The biodiversity activities have increased to 12 engagement activities, with several of those including more than one event, and some of them now scheduled to carry on into next year,” Mrs Caldwell says.

The biodiversity paper covers collaborative projects with iwi, Department of Conservation, and other key organisations to develop, co-ordinate and deliver programmes to enhance indigenous biodiversity – such as baseline studies, protection of high value biodiversity areas, site-led pest management and maintaining conservation outcomes.

Mrs Caldwell says in spite of the improving data for both biosecurity and biodiversity, ORC recognises there is more work to be done and staff are continually striving to improve and build on the positive results to both areas.

Biosecurity Operational Plan (BOP)

The Biosecurity Operational Plan, covering 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024, is focussed on the plants and animals which are declared pests in the Otago region. The Biosecurity Operational Plan is developed on an annual basis and provides detail around the work the Biosecurity team do to deliver on the objectives of the Otago Pest Management Plan 2019-2029.

Mrs Caldwell highlighted the 2023-24 BOP contained 63 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in all.

“A total 47 KPIs were fully achieved or exceeded, with an achievement rate of 74.6%. Another 10 KPIs were assessed as being partially achieved, for a rate of 15.9%,” she says.

There has been a “progressive improvement in achievement rates”, from 29.9% struck in 2020-21 through to the latest 74.6% in 2023-24, Mrs Caldwell says.

Mrs Caldwell says for the relatively high-profile problem of rabbits reported by the public, there were 467 rabbit inspections completed, during the 2023-24 year, in non-community programme areas against a target of at least 250 rabbit inspections.

“During the past year mild weather conditions and food sources have favoured rabbit populations and numerous hotspots have emerged, from coastal Otago through to Central Otago,” she says.

Additionally, there were a further 192 inspections completed in community rabbit programme areas.

“Properties inspected cover a range of areas with each having an underlying proneness to rabbit infestation,” she says.

Looking at Non-rabbit Pest Inspections, there were 2129 non-rabbit pest inspections and monitoring visits completed, against a target of 1500. The total was made up of 285 formal inspections and 1844 monitoring visits.

“During the year, a secondary data collection tool was developed to monitor pests in non-property locations, such as road verges and river margins. This data collection tool also allows monitoring of pests outside of our compliance process. This includes pests such as rooks, spiny broom and organisms of interest. This allows the Biosecurity team to gather information around distribution of biosecurity issues across the region.

Highlight of the year was engagement

Mrs Caldwell says a highlight of the year was engagement with landowners, the community, Crown agencies and territorial authorities.

There were a total 53 engagements with key Crown agencies and territorial authorities around various aspects of pest management, including MPI, DoC, LINZ, KiwiRail, NZ Transport Agency I Waka Kotahi and the district councils of Waitaki, Dunedin, Clutha, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes.

There were 767 engagements during summer through the ORC’s annual “Check, Clean, Dry” campaign to advocate and educate the public on preventing the transmission on water craft and gear of aquatic weeds, focusing on aquatic pest plants, including lagarosiphon.

“We got some resounding positive feedback to all the engagements,” Mrs Caldwell says.

There were 27 collaborations with neighbouring Regional Councils on pest management, including meetings, information sharing, site visits and staff exchanges, plus a further 32 meetings or visits with Environment Canterbury on wallabies. There were 14 collaborations with Kāi Tahu on biosecurity issues.

There were 14 community events attended to support best practice pest control, and 61 advocacy and education engagements, including online, were circulated to the public.

Biodiversity partnership activities and projects

On biodiversity, Mrs Caldwell says new activities include exploring threatened species work, Blue Green networks in Queenstown Lakes District, being part of the new Upper Lakes Conservation Sector Group, the WAO [environmental group] led biodiversity collaborative funding roundtable and Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge.

“The biodiversity partnership projects are on track with a new project being developed for a Biodiversity Management Tool – which will help inform decision making on how to best manage land for biodiversity outcomes,” Mrs Caldwell says.

Several other new projects were explored including a threatened plant ex-situ propagation partnership with Dunedin Botanic Gardens and Dunedin City Council.

“This very important project has the potential to get underway in 2024-25, depending on the project’s feasibility, which is being looked at,” Mrs Caldwell says.

ORC’s annual ECO Fund and Incentives programme

Mrs Caldwell says a wide range of ECO Fund and Incentive recipients’ projects have been funded or supported and ORC’s Environmental Implementation staff have been in contact with all recipients and visited most of the projects.

“There are no major issues with any projects underway. Where projects have requested variations of deliverables or timeframes, these have been negotiated and documented in a project tracking system. Most projects are due to file reports this month [August],” she says.

This year a total 33 environmental projects across Otago were granted a total $854,733 from the annual ECO Fund and Incentives Funding programmes – taking total funds dispersed since mid-2018 to more than $2.58 million to 166 organisations.

Mrs Caldwell noted the ECO Fund and associated incentives will be reviewed as usual and the 2025 round will be rolled out next year, including any changes from that review, and reporting to Council will continue.

Compliance and Enforcement

There were about 595 letters; excluding Notices of Direction, sent to occupiers or landowners to advise them of the outcome of a variety of pest inspections.

“The principal approach following an inspection is through advocacy and education or collaboration, followed up by re-inspections and, where appropriate, issuing a ‘requirement to act’ through a formal Notices of Direction,” Mrs Caldwell says.

The approaches used to progress compliance differ depending on circumstances, such as the pest species, location, infestation level, and the relevant pest management rule. In some situations, contractors maybe tasked to undertake pest control, she says.

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