Environment Southland councillor says council is 'stuffed' on wilding conifers as DNA tracing hits consent hurdle

Environment Southland councillors have aired their frustration at the region's slow progress against wilding conifers, with councillor Eric Roy declaring the council "stuffed" after hearing that tracing rogue trees back to their source would need landowners' consent.

The exchange came at a council meeting this week, the Otago Daily Times reported on Friday in a Local Democracy Reporting story.

Roy told the meeting he was "grieving" over the spread of the trees, which the Department of Conservation classes as invasive weeds threatening New Zealand's distinctive landscapes. He asked whether DNA testing of seed could be used to link wildings to the forest owners whose plantations they escaped from.

Jolie Hazley, a team leader at the council, told the meeting the option had been investigated, but gathering DNA would require consent from the owners of the properties concerned.

"We're stuffed, we're stuffed then! We can't do it, we're stuffed," Roy responded, the ODT reported.

Mana whenua representative Evelyn Cook asked whether genetically modified trees might offer a solution, and argued that money spent controlling introduced pests could be put to better use elsewhere. She said forest owners profited from their trees while leaving others with the cost of the spread.

"So they're reaping the economic benefit, but they're creating an economic and environmental liability," Cook said.

Fellow councillor Richard Hodson agreed there was not enough money for the work, though he said the council should not be expected to carry the whole load.

"I guess my biggest fear is that we are planning to fail," he said.

A report to the meeting said a regional working group would be formed after Environment Southland and Southland District Council held a joint workshop in September. A presentation to that workshop listed the harm wildings cause, including changed landscapes, lost farmland and biodiversity, reduced water yield, wildfire risk and cover for pest animals.

Environment Southland has so far secured $4.29 million through the Ministry for Primary Industries' Wilding Conifer Control Programme, $2.49 million of it for the 2026/27 year.

The problem has been building for years. In August 2025 a council report warned Southland had reached a tipping point, with Douglas-fir spreading faster than control work could keep up, RNZ reported at the time. The report said large parts of Northern Southland could be overrun within 30 years without more intervention, and that the cost of removal climbed by 30 per cent for each year it was put off. About $24.6 million had been spent on the problem since 2016.

Roy described that report as "one of the most sobering reports I've read in some time".

The Mid Dome Wilding Trees Charitable Trust, which works across more than 68,000 hectares of Northern Southland, had by then been struggling on reduced budgets.

In May this year, after the Government announced a $79 million national boost for wilding control, Hazley said the money was "not going to solve all of Southland's issues". Farmers Weekly reported then that Mid Dome, Flagstaff and Takitimu were in line for possible funding, while the Lake Te Anau to Kingston area was expected to miss out. Environment Southland's own spending on wilding control was $50,000, which went to the Mid Dome trust.

What happens next: The regional working group with Southland District Council is still to be set up. The ODT report did not give a date for its first meeting.