The thorny issue of invasive weeds brought a group of knowledgeable professionals together for the third Biodiversity Practitioners forum hosted by Hurunui Biodiversity Trust. Initiated in 2023, these forums facilitate information sharing and networking between experts from various agencies and people working on the ground to support biodiversity in Hurunui.

This forum’s focus was finding better ways to manage introduced, exotic plants that pose an increasing threat to Hurunui’s vulnerable native ecosystems. While many agencies and NGOs are working on the problem nationwide, each region needs to consider its own unique risks and strategies depending on type and range of weeds, priority sites for protection, and available resources. A recurring question was how to balance work on established weeds, e.g. old man’s beard, with the need to get ahead of new weeds arriving in our district, such as giant willowherb.

The forum began with a lunch hosted by HBT to give attendees an opportunity to meet and chat. Once everyone arrived, the formal session got underway with introductions and the stated intention of airing issues and priorities for how to deal better with invasive environmental weeds in Hurunui.

Steve Belton of ECAN spoke about the council’s current weed programmes, and planning for the future. He mentioned that the Canterbury Regional Pest Management Plan (CRPMP) is up for review in 2028 and this would be an opportunity to submit a strategy to ECAN to inform the new plan. Mike Bennett proposed that HBT’s resource (HuBZAP), which provides zone-based approaches to weed pressures, could be expanded to provide more specific information for the suggested Hurunui weed strategy.

From here, discussion became wide-ranging and reflected the diverse perspectives of attendees. A key focus was communication – how to get better communication between agencies, how to achieve greater coordination between private and public land managers for weed control at scale, and how to make greater use of trusted community networks rather than agencies relying on traditional means that are limited in reach.

Afternoon tea was an opportunity to break into smaller groups and to submit via sticky notes a list of everyone’s own top 10 priority weeds.

The final session turned to community education and engagement. Suggestions were made on condensing an overwhelming amount of information into a relevant and accessible form, with examples tabled. These included online resources, ‘ute guides’ and weedbuster pamphlets. A Pest Free Hurunui campaign that targets pest plants as well as animals could reinforce the urgency of our weed predicament to the wider public.

To conclude, Brian Taylor, DOC NC biodiversity ranger, spoke about the need to educate people about fire prevention, noting that investing massive effort into biodiversity projects is pointless if they are vulnerable to complete loss from fire.

HBT trustees are now hard at work capturing all the ideas generated from this stimulating forum into a report and proposals for next steps.