Award Nominee

Rod Brown, has become an identity in the Department of Conservation and now in the wider Kerikeri community, because of his involvement, with DOC, Forest & Bird and local community issues.

Starting in the year 2000, Rod became a DOC volunteer, helping programme manager Adrian Walker, with weed management and planting programmes on Motupapa and Taranaki Island in the Kerikeri Inlet. Attempts to plant and restore habitat areas, were under threat from the competition on invasive weeds, such as moth plant, smilax and kikuyu.

Rod, became coordinator of the DOC Plant shadehouse in Kerikeri, which relys entirely on volunteer assistance. Seed is collected from different ecological areas, grown in the shadehouse, and then returned to the areas, in this case, the Islands. Today he is still the coordinator and is involved with weed management and planting on many other islands, including Motokawanui Island in the Cavalli Islands, and Waewaetoria Island, in the Bay of Islands group. The shadehouse also supplies plants to other environmental projects throughout Northland.

Dan O Halloran of the Weedbusters team, at the Bay of Islands Area Office, in Kerikeri, explained to Rod in his early involvement with the projects that Weeds were a bigger problem than Possums! . At the time Rod believed this to be an exaggeration, but after several years of work in weed management he realised Dan was right.

As a Forest & Bird member and representative, he approached Northland Regional Council (NRC) with a presentation on possible management of Moth Plant and that it should be included in their pest management strategy. Today NRC acknowledge the moth plant problem and it is included on their Delightful but Destructive weed brochure.

Approximately 4 years ago Rod, started a volunteer group to eradicate moth plant from parts of the Waitangi Wetland Reserve, on Inlet Road, in Kerikeri. In its first year it is estimated that several thousand seed pods were removed, which would have amounted to millions of moth plants seedlings. This group is in need of more local support, as ongoing maintenance is required to keep the moth plant under control.

Naturally, Rod is also involved with ongoing, weed control on his own property. The dreaded moth plant, morning glory, tobacco weed, purple cud weed and fat hen. All require continued management to keep them away from his and neighbours properties.