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DoC dobs itself in for errant spraying
Newsroom
2/03/2021
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How did two weed control operations on public conservation land go so wrong? David Williams reports
The effects of the herbicide spraying becomes obvious just past the old, corrugated-iron musterers’ hut, with its tack shed and veranda.
Scattered among grasses at the southern edge of Lake Emma in Canterbury’s Hakatere Conservation Park lie dead exotic Scotch broom plants, while, nearby, the tougher sweet brier is re-sprouting.
But as Canterbury Regional Council ecologist Philip Grove and his colleague Mike Marr, a resource management investigator, pick their way along the 500-metre-long sprayed area, there’s evidence of what Grove calls “non-target spray damage” to native shrubs, matagouri and Coprosma propinqua. (According to documentation, there was both aerial and ground spraying.) ....

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