5/14 & 15/2014 - Christchurch - University of Canterbury - Hanmer Springs

May 13 was the last of Tasmania  as we headed to the airport at 4:30 am on the 14th, to fly to New Zealand.  We landed in Christchurch about 3:30 pm due to the 2 hour time change, met our new host/guide Murray, and spent the afternoon working on various writing projects. A few people headed to downtown Christchurch for dinner but found much of downtown closed up.  The downtown area was devastated in the earthquake in 2011 and is still recovering with a whole "container mall," an area of downtown completely made of the large containers found on ships and trucks, where they have built temporary shops and restaurants until they can rebuild.

We were briefed at New Zealand's Canterbury University which houses the Forestry Program and SCION,

Murray Dudfield talks about the earthquake in Christchurch

the forestry research arm. We spent the morning hearing the details of the 6.3 earthquake in February 2011 that devestated the Christchurch area, including the University we were visiting and which was obviously still under construciton. Over 6000 companies with more than 50,000 employees in the Central business DIstrict were affected - in fact, no one went back in that district for 6 weeks. 173 people died and the area is sill recovering.

Grant Pearce with SCION

We heard from Grant Pearce, a researcher and senior scientist with SCION about the projects on which the university is working. 75% of research money is from the NZ government and they have been funded for 20 years. Focus is changing a bit now to the National Science Challenge, which focuses on all hazard research. The other 25% comes from a collaboration of end users, the Rural Fire Industry, Bushfire CRC and USFS/JFSP.

Tech transfer is a major focus of the research program - how to get the results out to people in the field. They have had to produce different tools because they find the conversation about application of the research on fires is different for each audience. They produce reports, summaries, have a website and email newsletters, conduct research sharing workshops and they have developed training tools such as a field manual, software, smartphone apps, and photoguides.

There are four research themes for 2012-2016
1. Emerging risks in new fuel types - climate change
2. Enhanced community resilience -educating at risk people, fire readiness
3. Use of fire as a land management tool - issues/ benefits, impacts on ecosystem
4. Improving safety and productivity - production rates for firefighters, new suppression technology

There is a very Polynesian influence here, culturally and in the flora.  The names you see are reminiscent of Hawaii and the vegetation is not primarily fire adapted like in Australia.   They don't have the "bush" like you see in Australia, but rather coastal plains around the edges, and in the center, heavily forested, mountainous terrain with few Eucalypts, and instead plants like Kanuka and Manuka.  The New Zealand Alps run north/south in the middle of the south island.

You don't get the sense that they are as focused on fire here as in Australia which makes sense as this is not historically a very fire prone area and they have many other recurring natural disasters to worry about that

happen more frequently like earthquakes, mudslides and drought.  As a result,  they have difficulty getting the public to be concerned about preparedness. There is no prescribed burning done on public lands; instead they provide some equipment and rely on private citizens to do their own burning on their own lands. It's believed there never has been much natural fire here because there is no preponderance of fire adapted species. Their primary fuels are coastal dunes, coastal scrub, manuka scrub, kanuka scrub, mixed native scrub, wilding (non commercial pine), commercial forests (big industry), tussock and grasses, snow tussock & 5 species of Beech in the high country and a pine mix.  New Zealand is very good at growing grass which is why its highly agricultural.

They are looking at effects of climate change on fire since they are seeing significant increases in fire danger in most of the country. And they are predicting rapid increases in fire danger through 2040, almost doubling the number of days in extreme range. They have a new National Fire Weather System showing historic, current, & forecasted weather all in one place which became operational in Aug of 2013 and is linked to a smart app "Fire Danger Rating" for the public. The app uses GPS to find weather nearest the user and links weather to fire danger, to tell them what activities to avoid. So far they have only piloted a beta version of the app but it will be going public soon.

Buckets hand from the ceiling

Following our discussions at the University of Canterbury, we  made our way to Rangiora Rural Fire

Bagged fire hose ready to go.

Regional office and depot outside of Canterbury where we had some fun looking at equipment and hearing about their fire program. We learned about the Department of Conservation which has responsibility for protecting reserves. Fire is not allowed in the reserves as they contain many "last of their kind" species that are not fire adapted. Their difficulty is that what's left of these species is often in small 2 or 3 kilometer patches, some in the enter of privately owned land, and much of it looks like nothing but  grass.
Convincing people to fund protection programs or not destroy patches on private land is challenging.

Then we headed up to some pine plantations near Hanmer Springs. Hanmer Springs is a beautiful mountain community known for its miles of "tracks" or trails popular with "trampers" or hikers.  They have trails for horses, for bikes, for hiking and many other uses and a very popular hot springs. Interestingly, it's actually a managed plantation which allows

Hanmer Springs Forest

recreational use. There used to be a New Zealand Forest Service which owned the land and managed plantations, but like in the US, much land has been given back to the indigenous people. In addition, the forests on much of that land is now owned and managed by timber companies, many of them US companies. An indigenous group called Ngai Tahu owns the forest land in Hanmer Springs, Rayonier Matariki (an American company) owns the trees and the New Zealand Forest Service doesn't exist any more.

Recently cut plantation forest.

We took a short trip into an area of the forest recently cleared by the timber company and two things stood out to me. First, things grow very fast here. A 6 year old Radiata pine is as tall as a 20 year old Radiata would be in the US. So they harvest Radiata at about 25 years and Ponderosa at about 45.  Second, they also plant up the sides of some very steep mountains, and use equipment in some unorthodox ways to harvest!!  They said they often have to drop feller bunchers or similar equipment over the side of a mountain on a chain and winch to cut in a straight swath down and then pull the cutter up, move it and drop it again! Not exactly to manufacturer specs!  Our evening ended with a few members of the group enjoying a few hours in the hot springs!

Scenary on the way to Hanmer Springs