Motu Kaikoura Trust

The Motu Kaikoura Trust (MKT) was established in 2005 to control and manage the Motu Kaikoura Scenic Reserve, covering the whole of Kaikoura Island|Motu Kaikoura, an island adjacent to Great Barrier Island and the seventh largest island in the Hauraki Gulf.

History[edit]

Attempts were made by the New Zealand Government to purchase the island from private ownership in the 1970s to form part of the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park but they were unsuccessful. In 1995 a community-based campaign aimed at bringing the island into public ownership was mounted. While this campaign was also unsuccessful, it did bring the island into public focus and led to a further attempt in 2003–2004. In this campaign, which was successful, money was raised from the Nature Heritage Fund, the ASB Community Trust and local bodies to complete the purchase.

With the transfer of the island into public ownership as a Scenic Reserve, MKT was established to manage the island in 2005. A major goal is the environmental restoration of the island

Animal pests[edit]

Prior to the island's purchase into public ownership it had operated as a farm with frequent burning of the native vegetation as well as the release of fallow deer, pigs, sheep, cattle, goats and rabbits. By 2008 fallow deer, pigs, cats and rabbits had been removed. The removal of deer in particular allowed native forest regeneration to accelerate. As the only known remaining exotic animal pests on the island, two species of rat, ship rat (Rattus rattus) and Polynesian rat or kiore (Rattus exulans) survive. While the island is always subject to reinvasion by rats due to its proximity to Aotea Great Barrier Island there has been an intensive programme to control rat numbers to enable native bird, reptile and invertebrate populations to flourish. The aim of the control programme is to reduce rat numbers below the 5% index level as measured by tracking tunnels spread across the island.

Plant pests[edit]

A number of environmental weeds have been identified on the island. Control of the weeds is undertaken but while most of the pest species can be eradicated in the short to medium term, wind dispersal from Aotea Great Barrier Island of the seeds of some hinders their eradication.

Restoration of the island's indigenous flora and fauna[edit]

MKT made a deliberate decision to allow natural regeneration of the flora assisted by pest removal and not undertake a planting programme, to provide a comparison with other island regeneration projects. Surveys of both plant and animal species present on the island are undertaken but essentially the island is left to itself to develop by controlling pests. Special plants include the supposedly regionally extinct native grass Elymus solandri and Celmisia major, the threatened native carrot Daucus glochidiatus and at least two of the three endemic Aotea Great Barrier island plants Kunzea sinclarii and Hebe pubsecens subsp rehuarum.

Forty species of birds have been recorded on Motu Kaikoura or on the surrounding waters. Of these, 29 are native species, including the regionally rare New Zealand kaka (Nestor meridionalis) and Buff-banded rail|banded rail (Gallirallus philippensis). Since the first published bird list, korimako or New Zealand bellbird (Anthornis melanura) and kākāriki (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae) have colonised the island. The threatened pāteke or Brown teal|brown teal (Anas aucklandica) have been recorded breeding on the island.

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