New Zealand and much of its endangered wildlife is "losing the war'' against introduced mammalian predators and new ideas are needed to help us win.
Geoff Simmons, an economist and author working for the Morgan Foundation, made that point in a hard-hitting talk on "Wildlife Safe Havens'' at the Otago Museum's Hutton Theatre last night.
Mr Simmons was addressing about 90 people, as guest speaker at the opening of the four-day Wild Dunedin Festival.
He leads the foundation's efforts to create wildlife safe havens through the Predator Free New Zealand initiative and cat control.
New Zealand was a world leader in moves to protect endangered wildlife by eliminating mammalian predators, such as rats, mice, and stoats from offshore islands, including in New Zealand subantarctic islands, he said.
And smart new forms of technology were offering exciting and more sustainable ways of trapping and poisoning mammalian predators.
But few New Zealanders realised that their country had one of the worst rankings of any country in the world for the high proportion of its native wildlife which was endangered, including by predators.
And another worrying fact was that there was no overall determined leadership striving to remove mammalian predators from all of New Zealand.
"We're in a war ... that we are losing,'' he warned.
Doc had oversight of the Doc estate, but no clear role for the other two-thirds of the country.
In some countries, including Australia and the United States, tourists visiting national parks were required to make a payment.
And, during a question-and-answer session after his talk, he raised the idea of overseas tourists making a modest contribution, perhaps about $20, when they arrived in the country.
This funding could contribute towards a fund which could make a big impact on reducing mammalian predators, boosting native plants and wildlife and also delivering a big bonus by further enhancing New Zealand's appeal as a tourist destination.
