The Otago Regional Council should extend its successful pest management strategy from contorta pine to cover all invasive wilding conifer species in Otago.
That suggestion has been made by a concerned Central Otago resident who asked not to be named, but who has taken an interest in wilding conifer management issues.
The man said in an interview the council's Pinus contorta strategy was well researched, had been "enforced quite vigorously'' by the council, and had been "effective in removing the target species''.
But other invasive conifer species not part of the pest management strategy were not required to be removed.
And problems with some other conifer species, particularly wilding Douglas fir, were "several orders of magnitude'' bigger in scale than the Pinus contorta problem.
The council has raised the possibility of providing some funding to wilding conifer control groups through input into its next annual planning process.
