The collaborative goodwill approach to curbing wilding conifer spread has failed, and Douglas fir should be outlawed to needing exemptions, a control group says.

Central Otago Wilding Conifer Control Group programme director Pete Oswald says enforcement is the missing piece.

“Without a robust backstop, so a big stick as we normally call it, you’re going to have bad actors,” he says.

“We can only move as fast as our slowest person.”

He says the current strategy has the diagnosis backwards.

“We’re treating the symptom, which is the wilding spread.

“What we need to treat is the problem, which is the seed sources, and we need to start with the biggest ones.”

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