Conservation Minister Nick Smith's announcement called ''Battle for our Birds'' has been well received generally.
Wildlife protection groups recognise the dangers this year from the looming ''mast'' in beech forests and appreciate resources being applied to kill bird predators.
Naturally, the move - right from the name of the programme - is presented in the best possible light. That is what government departments, governments and their public relations arms do.
Thus, the Department of Conservation is ''to protect species at risk from predator plague''.
Thus, $21 million will be ready to spend, aiming to protect 25 million native birds a year over the next five years. Thus, it is hailed as Doc's ''largest ever species protection programme''.
Doc scientists predict a huge seed-fall this autumn, as happens every 10 years or so. Stoat and rat numbers will explode because of all the food, turning on native bird chicks in the aftermath in the spring.
Field staff will closely watch the seed-fall, monitor pest numbers and act as required.
Doc and TBfree NZ apply the poison 1080 to about 440,000 hectares of conservation land at present.
They will be ready to extend over another 500,000ha.
Apart for those who are opposed, often implacably, to 1080, this is good news.
Indeed, the programme is to be welcomed because the devastation of the last mast year does not bear repeating. Nonetheless, two important caveats are worth noting.
First, the money comes from existing Doc resources, budgets already cut over the past four years and under extra strain. The money spent on this work has to be cut from somewhere else in the $335 million budget.
Projects will have to be ''reprioritised''. Perhaps even more significant is the scale of the problem.
If 1080 is dropped on an extra 500,000ha, this will bring the total coverage for 2014-15 to about one million hectares, still only 12% of conservation estate.
Maps illustrating the areas where the poison could be dropped show just how vast the conservation estates are in the South Island, and how much will not even come close to being touched.
The programme has to be stepped up regularly - and not just in a mast year - so the country can be covered, with once every 10 years a Federated Mountain Clubs' proposal.
At that level, close to a million hectares would have to be ''treated'' each year because Doc manages 8.7 million ha of public conservation land and most is vulnerable.
As it is, the ''dawn chorus'' of native birds in many remote and not so remote parts of New Zealand's has been silenced.
Parliament Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright has advocated wider coverage.
She, and others who have studied these matters, know that - under current technology and methods - widespread aerial application of 1080 is the only way to protect our native birds.
Sometimes, some birds are killed when 1080 is spread. There have been particular issues with kea, and an attempt to produce a kea repellent bait was not particularly successfully.
But, overall, the benefits for birds are so huge that small temporary harm is vastly outweighed by the killing of predators.
In fact, Dr Wright has been quoted as saying: ''Whio, kereru, kiwi, kea, tomtits, robins, kakariki and mohua have all responded well to aerial 1080 operations, with increased chick and adult survival, and increases in population size.
There are no recorded cases where kiwi have been killed by 1080.''
Because it can kills dogs and deer when ingested, it is no surprise many hunters oppose its use.
Nevertheless, 1080 is relatively cheap and, crucially, breaks down quickly so it does not linger in soil and water.
Most wildlife groups, like Forest and Bird and WWF, believe 1080 should be used as widely as possible to protect this country's birds.
As Dr Wright found in her investigation in 2011 and last year, 1080 poses little threat to the environment and is the only effective means of controlling the pests that threaten our birds and forests.
