An article on the Kapiti Independent News site which caused raised eyebrows follows. Four years ago we had a talk with the KCDC’s Biodiversity Officer who said that policy focuses on species that ‘are not introduced by people’, but the criteria for that are highly debatable.
“Pohutukawa is now one of Wellington’s most invasive plant problems, colonising almost unstoppably, and compromising the integrity of the city’s own distinctive indigenous ecosystems.” –Barbara Mitcalfe, in a recent letter to the Dominion Post
Kapiti readers will recall that a few years ago the Council ordered the removal of some plants along the Waikanae River.
Were they exotic weeds like broom, gorse and blackberry, or perhaps Australian or English shrubs?
No, they were New Zealand seedlings which were not endemic to the Waikanae watershed.
Now we have concerns expressed in Wellington (see the quote above), that the wonderful native pohutukawa has no place in the local environment