TV3 news crew filming trampers using Trigene stations while filming for Easter Friday 3 News

The Auckland Council Regional Development and Operations Committee on Thursday voted to close 13 Kauri Protection Areas throughout the Waitakere Ranges, involving 27 km of tracks, to try and halt to spread of phytophthora taxon agathis (PTA) which is killing kauri trees in the area. The areas chosen for quarantining are “clean” and so free of PTA. The aim is to try and protect those to provide a reservoir of health kauri for the future.

The Kauri Protection Zones are in:

• Cascade Kauri (Robinson Ridge Track)
• Anawhata (Chateau Mosquito and RGB Track)
• Waiatarua (Walker Kauri Track, Dreamlands Track, Taumata Track)
• Piha (Lucy Cranwell Track)
• Karekare (La Trobe Track)
• Huia (Nuggets Track)
• Parau (Crusher Pipeline Track, Nihotupu Ridge Track, Summit Track, Farley Track, Manchester Unity Block)
• Mt Donald McLean (Bob Gordon Track)

The closures will start from 1 July and there will be plenty of publicity before then. The Council is still looking at whether any tracks in the Hunuas which is unaffected by kauri dieback will need to be closed.

In other places peope are asked to use phytosanitary stations and scrub and spray their boots. PTA is spread by soil on boots and the spread correlates to the track network.

TV3 filming kauri dieback signs at the entrance to the Kitekite Falls Track