Rahui being urged for Waitakere Range

@Berend, what I want is to see actual qualified debate about what you're saying instead of people just saying stuff to each other on the internet which happens to be consistent with their obvious ulterior motive.

for years authorities have just played at trying to stop the disease without really verifying what they were doing was really working. you had observations from people on the ground that an estimated 80% of people werent cleaning their shoes at the cleaning stations which have scrubbing brushes and detergent, but it was pointed out there was nothing much to hold onto at cleaning stations or sit down while you manually got a spray bottle to spray the underside of your shoes or someone elses as they stood on one leg... and used a scrubbing brush, in some places they later put upside down yard brooms sticking up through a recess in the ground covered by a grate to scrub the mud off. only recently did they start designing more practical cleaning stations , ones you couldnt walk around like previous ones... this went on for years. for most of that time, there were no official figures i could see published that anyone was pointing out in an official way that the cleaning stations were a complete waste of time and effort. the initial assumption that what they put in place was always going to be enough persisted for years. it made the problem worse because the problem of making sure there were effective means stopping the disease spreading then went off the radar of a lot of people who were involved in and responsible for the implementation decision making. complacency ensued. there wasnt much talk about animals being just as much of a problem as people at spreading the disease. pig control hadnt been systematic over the years, the waitakeres may be a sacrificial lamb in the process of finding out what doesnt work in stopping the disease. the forest may well be completely stuffed already. its a small forest. there's still nothing agreed to be able to stop other animals spreading the disease which is already widespread. and now the public have been shut out of the park indefinitely, and i dont see that that will make much difference to the future, of the kauri there, it will just slow down the decline of the Kauri but not stop it. they cant safely say they will be able to stop everyone from entering the park.... if you're a local going for a short walk in the park, the chances of being caught are pretty minimal. or you might think that , you might get caught eventually, but in the meantime yo're still walking around a park which is now minus cleaning stations or information because its assumed people arent going into thepark anymore. next to such a major city theres going to be a reasonable no of people who will still enter the park anyway.. i haven't heard of anyone being prosecuted over entering the park yet so that isn't on peoples radar not sure how aware the general population is about fines, and if they arent and its not signposted at the dozens of entrances to the park then it wont be on everyones radar when they go there. a person was entering the waitakeres a million times a year. is the ban going to stop all of those entries? its one of the busiest parks in teh country, for its size... whats guaranteed now is anyone who enters it when they shouldnt, is even less likely to be cleaning their footwear than they were before and they are potentially a vector for the disease... how are they going to prosecute people? if you wit hold personal information and they dont have a car rego, they cant detain you. people can just walk or run off, theres plenty of runners who go into that park who could probably outrun any rangers. if you dont park your car at an obvious place and they dont catch you entering or leaving the park where they can see which car you came frrom or go to, how will they get your id to prosecute? i'm not endorsing this behaviour at all. but its not a difficult concept for anyone else to come up with. anyone who wants to enter the park who thinks about it much isnt going to leave their car at a park carpark where it was likely you had left it to enter the park, if you're parked at a beach carpark, you just walk along the beach and then duck into the park away from your carpark or walk along a road around the park for a while before ducking into the park. can people honestly believe that all one million of those entries to the park will now stop and all entries be detected let alone prosecuted? officials can say well we're doing all we can to stop the disease spread, we are being responsible. but are they being practical? i think they are inconveniencing a lot of people for little real result... seriously, take a look at the map of the tracks, do you think that you can effectively stop people from going into the park? certainly if you dont use a track and bush or stream bash, your chances of being caught in the thick bush are very negligible https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-36.924976,174.504763&z=13

Okura Bush Track also closed now - glad I checked before driving all the way from Waitakere to the North Shore today! https://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/news.aspx?id=74532 I do wonder if the redevelopment of this track (board walking and re-routing) might be the blue print for the upgrade and hence re opening of the Waitakere tracks. The big metal cage doors across the track entrances are pretty discouraging.

Yeah, the Hunuas likewise, with practically all bush tramping near Auckland closed. Echos of 2001 foot and mouth in the UK, when when all walking tracks/bridleways and countryside access were shut for months. Gradually re-opening in Scotland first and then the remainder of the country. Never really proved that walkers, mountain bikers were spreading foot and mouth, but the effect on rural tourist businesses lasted for ages. There the closures were less than year, I get the feeling that the Waitakeres and Hunua closures could be pretty much permanent.

It is, without doubt, a serious problem. Exclusion for the foreseeable future is a reasonable strategy as humans are one of the vectors. Other control methods are necessary, too. Feral animal control, for example. There *are* things that can be done. Individual trees can be inoculated, surrounding land can be treated. These strategies have some (but limited) success but are not inexpensive - and need to be on-going. In Victoria (with different species of tree and Phytophthora, however), some success over 30 years has been observed with genetically resistant variants. All is not necessarily lost but there is no easy/cheap/quick solution. My advice is inform yourselves and support those researchers - on the ground and in the labs.

This seems relevant to this thread. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443093/man-who-breached-kauri-dieback-rules-gets-5700-fine ======= A man has been ordered to pay $5700 and pay court costs of $130 after he was found guilty of flouting kauri dieback rules at an Auckland regional park. Robert Armitstead was sentenced today at the Waitākere District Court by Judge Lisa Tremewan. In March, Armitstead was convicted of three offences for entering tracks in the Waitākere Ranges that had been closed to prevent the spread of the tree-killing disease. The West Auckland man was caught several times on camera in 2019 entering closed walkways in Titirangi. It is the first prosecution of its kind. ...

he was walking on a road... he thought the road wasnt actually part of the park. its an access road for watercare to access hydro dams. he knew there werent any kauri next to that road... theres significant areas in the park without kauri but they closed all of it....