Wilding pines

@waynowski, John Glasgow (of Caroline Face fame) is a nature guide at Abel Tasman and told me once the lone pines in amongst the bush in the park have been shot with poisoned bullets from a helicopter. What a job... you'd have to be pretty good at hitting your target.

@lewshaw - be interested to see photos of that tramp. Since I hope to one day bikepack the Tarndale route.

@geeves. Couple of questions on the Ruapehu pine job - assuming you were involved. 1) Did the volunteers use herbicide paste (vigilant, etc) on the stumps? 2) Were they told to ensure no needles remained on the cut tree Reason I ask is that the accepted wisdom is that if you cut the tree off low enough that no needles remain, it will not regrow and does not require herbicide as well. Now, a lot of us who spend a lot of time and effort getting to trees in the backcountry treat that advice with scepticism. If I'm going to walk all that way carrying saw & loppers then I'm damn well going to paste the stumps with herbicides anyway, to be sure to be sure. And I advise groups we work with to do the same. But I'd be keen to hear on examples of the 'leave no needles' approach failing, to confirm my own suspicions.

we were told no needles should be left on the sapplings, we had no paste, the vast majority of sapplings where we were working were small enough to be pulled out of the ground.

Good thought on the herbicide Im guessing because we were untrained volunteers it wasnt an option for Doc in the same way as then not allowing chainsaws. We were cutting flush with the ground but there was evidence of some trees that had come away again from the stump. If they were small enough we pulled them out but some also had 6 inch trunks

We get our volunters using stump paste so it's not a complete no-no. Basically comes as a paste in a bottle with a brush-head on the top to smear onto the stumps. Most commercial brands are Picloram or Glyphosate based with dye in it so you know which cut stumps you've pasted and which not. We used to make our own with wallpaper paste and roundup, but you can get it commercially now. Not a tracked or approved handler required agchem (at least in these quantities) so suitable for volunteer use. Only ppe required is gloves.

RNZ catches up with the NZ Tramper debate ... http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/333741/abel-tasman-conservation-plan-may-provide-blueprint

abel tasmans problem is a drop in the bucket of the NZ wide problem isnt it? a lot of paid and volunteer labour working in a relatively small park, compared to the rest of NZ.