Cutting edge innovation protects native orchids

Greater Wellington has developed a new way to protect native orchid species that occupy track edges in regional parks around the Wellington Region. 

Track maintenance simultaneously provides more light for a number of native orchid species to grow and threatens their existence.

Greater Wellington’s senior environmental monitoring officer Barrett Pistoll says, “these specimens include one of the country’s rarest orchids, Corybas dienemus, which has high national significance and is considered Threatened – Nationally Critical.”

The novel approach came from the realisation that maintenance of the tracks was putting these already rare species at risk.

Barrett says, “It was a bit of a conundrum really, the maintenance was partially responsible for providing habitat for the species but was also the greatest threat to them. So, we needed to find a better way to manage the situation, particularly during flowering season of September to December when they are most vulnerable.”

Together with the team at Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush and Te Papa a management plan was drafted to design a track cutting schedule around the orchid life cycle. Greater Wellington GIS Analyst Jen McGowan built an app which signals track status according to a traffic light system. 

“I worked to match the known orchid sites to the tracks and then made the scheduler app using two main factors - the risk window of the orchids and if the track has recently been cut or not,” says McGowan.

“The app then shows the maintenance teams which tracks are due to be cut, or which tracks are out of bounds due to orchid window. When a track is cut, the rangers mark it off and it changes to brown until it's next due.”

Tracks shown as green on the app indicate no restrictions, those that are yellow are able to be cut but under close orchid watch, and red tracks are at higher risk during the orchid flowering window and are not to be cut until later in the season.  

The app is automated, and the traffic light system automatically changes colour once threat to the species has passed. Subsequently, if a track looks slightly overgrown, it could well be because there are rare orchid species nearby.

This system was finished in Spring 2024 and is now being trialled across all Greater Wellington parks. As orchids native to New Zealand are difficult to spot to the untrained eye, the app has been enormously useful in guiding parks staff who would otherwise be unaware or unsure.

The system has been vital in the protection of not only our rare and threatened orchid species, but also in the other 45+ native orchid species that have been identified along Greater Wellingtons track networks.

With the continued predicted success of the technological approach to maintenance and species protection, there is a potential for similar systems to be adopted around Aotearoa to protect other native species.