About the Project
This is what kauri dieback disease looks like
The Kauri RescueTM project otherwise known as Community Control of Kauri Dieback: Tiaki Kauri seeks to engage the public in refining new citizen science tools for the treatment of Kauri Dieback Disease, which is decimating kauri forests in northern New Zealand.
The project team comprises of scientists, social scientists, iwi and community groups and was initially funded for two-years 2016-2018 from the Government's Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. It was subsequently funded by Auckland Council from 2019-2020 and is currently funded by grants from the Ministry for Primary Industry's Kauri Protection Fund, Auckland Council and the National Science Challenge's Ngā Rakau Taketake: Saving Our Iconic Trees programme. Kauri Rescue is now a charitable trust and is interested in sponsorship and building long term relationships with anyone wanting to support kauri health. If you would like to help support the project please contact the trust by emailing admin@kaurirescue.org.nz
The team recruits private landowners to work alongside scientists to keep their kauri healthy and if they wish do so the landowners can treat their own trees with a chemical called phosphite which has shown great promise in Kauri Dieback Programme-funded scientific trials, by enabling kauri to fight back against the Phytophthora agathidicida pathogen that causes the disease.
The initial pilot study involved a small number of private landowners to test and refine the methodology before expanding this to a larger group in the second stage of the project. The current phase 3 of the project encourages increased uptake by landowners in the Auckland Region and will in 2021 expand to also cover all kauri lands outside the Auckland Region.
The project also encourages landowners to test other treatment techniques, encouraging both western science and mātauranga Māori methods, rigorously monitoring results and collecting data on all treatments so that their efficacy can be determined.
You can read more about the project on our Newsreel page.
Find out how you can join the team.
Check out our video which introduces Kauri Rescue
