Wilding pine and feral goat controls are the conservation success stories of the past three years, and while closer ties with the community are seen as a green opportunity, securing funds to get the work done is the challenge.
The Wakatipu Wilding Conifer Control Group (WCG) and the Department of Conservation (Doc) Wakatipu area office, in tandem with the Queenstown Lakes District Council, landowners and managers and hundreds of volunteers, continue to fight the battle against wilding pine trees.
The introduced pines compete for space with native trees and plants and do not encourage indigenous birdlife and insects. Pine needles hinder the regeneration of native forest floor species and grow to dominate otherwise picturesque landscapes.
The latest WCG annual meeting heard the equivalent of 10,000 rugby fields of wildings were eradicated in the 2010-11 season, at a cost of $628,500.
WCG chairman Peter Willsman said it had been "an amazing year" with record eradications.
Goats were another legacy of the European. The animals were introduced in the gold-rush era for food and as a primitive method of clearing native bush for agriculture.
Doc Wakatipu biodiversity threats programme manager Mark Mawhinney said goat control efforts had made a "very significant impact", although it had taken several years to get there.
The Remarkables, the upper Shotover and Dart Valley and the Eyre Mountains, in particular, were still strongholds for the estimated tens of thousands of wild goats still roaming. About 1000 goats were shot in a single day on Coronet Peak Station this month.
"Goats are heavy browsers. You can get mobs of 300 in the Shotover and they pretty much eat everything, from bark to quality grass," Mr Mawhinney said. "We've developed very good relations with neighbours and we're in a good position to carry on with the work, but funding can be an issue."
Meanwhile, Doc was encouraging residents, user groups and commercial operators to have input before the draft Otago Conservation Management Strategy (CMS) was prepared next year.
The CMS is a 10-year plan discussing how Doc would manage public conservation land and waters, and the priorities for conservation of natural and historical resources. The previous strategy was written in 1998.
Doc Wakatipu community relations programme manager John Roberts said Doc was engaging with the public at an earlier stage than previously. "The CMS is a wide-ranging document. It spans everything from coastal Otago and marine environments, right through to the Main Divide mountains near Queenstown."
The department has also seen structural changes in the past three years. The completion of Doc's $250,000 revamp of the Queenstown Regional Visitor Centre, on Shotover St, was celebrated with the permanent loan of pounamu set on a wooden plinth, which was given in a ceremony, in July 2010.
All 26 permanent and 16 temporary staff members moved into their Arthur's Point base in November.
