Press reboot. The New Zealand government has announced a 鈥渨orld-first鈥� plan to exterminate all non-native predators by 2050 to allow the country鈥檚 natural ecosystem to recover.
Rats, possums and stoats have ravaged the nation鈥檚 unique fauna since their introduction, with one-third of native birds now , and the iconic flightless Kiwi under .
Prime Minister John Key said on Monday that NZ$28 million would be committed to a public-private venture designed to fund large-scale predator eradication programmes.
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鈥淏y 2050, every single part of New Zealand will be completely free of rats, stoats and possums,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is the most ambitious conservation project attempted anywhere in the world.鈥�
Improvements in pest control strategies will help to make this dream a reality,聽 at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand told the country鈥檚 .
鈥淎fter decades of slow and small incremental progress in new technologies for pest control, the pace of advance is accelerating on several fronts 鈥� advanced trap designs, new lures, baits and poisons, biosensors and the remote control and delivery of all these and more on a grander scale,鈥� he says.
These approaches have already helped to eliminate introduced predators from .
鈥淭he one enormous and largely unconsidered cloud on this exciting horizon is that we have not considered how to successfully eradicate predators from peopled environments e.g. cities and agricultural landscapes,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat requires convincing almost聽everyone聽to buy into the goal.鈥�
Read more: Killing with kindness: Conservation鈥檚 cautionary tale
