CYCLONES, OUR PEOPLE, AND PROTECTED LAND

Recent weather events including ex-Cyclone Hale, the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle have had a devastating impact on landowners, farmers and urban and rural communities.

At QEII, we are thankful that everyone in our regional team and their families were accounted for shortly after the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle. At that time, we also wanted to ensure that our wider QEII whānau of landowners were safe and well and were able to focus on securing their overall general livelihoods without having the additional stress of worrying about damage to their covenants.

After the significant weather events, we began to get reports from covenantors about damage to their covenants. They highlighted issues such as treefall, stock management and fence damage, all the way through to the displacement of large sections of covenants.

Impacts on covenants

While we are still hearing from landowners, the damage to covenants that has been reported so far is varied and extensive.

In some cases, damage isn’t able to be assessed, with some landowners and farm managers unable to access parts of their properties. Where visits have been possible, the sights have been shocking with dead sheep and pine slash caught on fences, and crops and baleage pushed far into covenants. In a covenant visit six weeks after Cyclone Gabrielle, our rep found there was still 30 cm of wet silt through the covenant.

The level of damage varies from displaced vegetation or fencing right through to large movements of land, including entire sections of covenants. Treefall and landslides have been common. Stock gaining access to covenants due to damaged fencing was also a common issue, however in most cases this was able to be dealt with quickly by putting temporary measures in place.

Covenants that have sustained damage are often steep gullies with rivers or streams that have eroded the base and caused slips, or the surrounding pasture has slipped into the covenant and caused damage to the boundary fences on its way in.

At present we think around 70 out of approximately 220 covenants in the Wairoa and Tairāwhiti regions have been affected by Cyclone Gabrielle and approximately 91 out of 222 covenants in the Hawke’s Bay.

Weather damage was not just contained to the East Coast. We have seen damage to covenants in Auckland, Northland, Waikato, and lower parts of the North Island. John Williamson, regional rep for Manawatū, reported a loss of two hectares of mature podocarp forest to a riverside covenant in his area. Up north, our regional rep for NorthWest and East Auckland, Jessica Reaburn, discovered a thick layer of silt inside a QEII property that is home to the only recorded natural population of Veronica jovellanoides - at least half of the population has been covered in silt.

In addition to farm and covenant damage, we know some covenantors have lost access to their properties due to washed out driveways. In a few cases, slips have undermined houses surrounded by covenanted native bush, leaving them red stickered and unable to be lived in.

We also know that some covenants have fared better than others and, in many cases, we have seen the benefits of covenants and their resilience to the effects of the storms when compared to the surrounding landscapes. By utilising aerial imagery, available through LINZ, we have seen some areas of covenanted forest cover that has remained mostly undamaged, especially when compared with the pasture surrounding it.

Damage to walkways and bridges inside an Auckand covenant.

Photo credit: Jessica Reaburn.

Flooding scoured out the river bank leaving silt and ruining the fence at this Gisborne covenant.

Photo credit: Malcolm Rutherford

Uprooted trees have been a common issue.

Photo credit: Jessica Reaburn

Pine logs and slash left behind in a covenant.

Photo credit: Malcolm Rutherford

The same area in a Gisborne covenant before and after Cyclone Gabrielle. The top photo was taken in August 2022 and bottom photo was shortly after the cyclone.

Photo credit: Malcolm Rutherford

The same area in a Gisborne covenant before and after Cyclone Gabrielle. The top photo was taken in August 2022 and bottom photo was shortly after the cyclone.

Photo credit: Malcolm Rutherford

How the damage occurred

Unprecedented rainfalls in inland areas led to surface slips. These liquified hillsides flowed through properties, including covenant blocks, often taking out covenant fences. Streams that are normally small or dry burst their banks, carrying with them woody debris, taking out flood gates and cutting into streamside vegetation.

As these streams combined into rivers, they became raging torrents, laden with silt, branches, and posts, meaning that their flow destroyed much of what stood in their way. When we started looking at aerial imagery and checking in with landowners, we started to see some of these bigger flows had taken out large amounts of vegetation along riverbanks, as well as many bridges and farm tracks.

When the huge flows got to the flood plains in the lowlands, they burst their banks, flowing across crops and through houses, ruining livelihoods and more. Covenants in these lowland areas are somewhat accustomed to flooding, but not at this scale. Many now have silt through them, burying the understorey and killing ferns, seedlings and younger trees.

Damage in a covenant in the Hawke’s Bay.

Photo credit: Troy Duncan.

View overlooking a cyclone damaged area in Hawke’s Bay.

Photo credit: Troy Duncan.

Monitoring and damage assessment

QEII regional representatives are accustomed to working around unexpected road closures, slips and roadworks. However, the recent weather events have affected the way most of our QEII reps work, especially in badly affected areas.

Our regional rep for Hawke’s Bay, Troy Duncan, was our worst affected QEII team member. Thankfully, he and his family reached safety. Unfortunately, they lost everything in their home, located near the banks of the Tutaekuri river. Their house had to be completely gutted after floodwater reached the eaves.

In Gisborne, our regional rep Malcolm Rutherford found himself without power, internet and cell service after Cyclone Gabrielle. He was able to use his InReach, a satellite communication device issued to reps to use when they are out in the field, to contact his family and the QEII team to let them know he was okay.

Travel has been a key issue and one of the main barriers for reps when making visits to covenants. With many roads closed on the East Coast, getting around was, and still is, a challenge. Further north, our Coromandel-Hauraki rep, Jason Roxburgh, was affected by major slips closing SH25A and many other roads.

Our reps in affected areas have been working to get in touch with potentially affected landowners but these logistical challenges have meant that the usual covenant monitoring visits have been somewhat off the table in some regions.

When power and internet returned, Malcolm began to contact some of his covenantors and visited some of the worst affected covenants in the Gisborne region. Where transport and access were limited, he was able to work with our head office team to go through aerial imagery of covenants and do a digital assessment of damage. This showed washed out farm bridges, fences damaged by slips and silt settled in covenants.

Perhaps not surprisingly, our worst affected area has been Hawke’s Bay. Our team are continuing to support Hawke’s Bay covenantors to find solutions and work through their various current and future covenant management challenges.

Cyclone damage to a covenant in the Coromandel.

Photo credit: Jason Roxburgh.

Support and resources

Support for many of those affected will be required for some time to come. We also know that remedial work when it comes to recent weather damage to covenants will be a long journey ahead.

Some financial support may be available to landowners with covenants affected by the recent weather events through our upcoming contestable funding, the Stephenson Fund. To find out more about the Stephenson Fund and see examples of projects that have received funding, head to page 30-33.

We also have a list of resources and support available for landowners on our website, under the ‘managing your covenant’ section. We will continue to update this page as initiatives are established. Find out more at qeiinationaltrust.org.nz/ managing-your-covenant/supportforweatherevents

Aerial imagery

If you are interested in seeing aerial imagery, this is available on the LINZ website:

East Coast – 0.5 m scale https://bit.ly/EastCoastBaseMap

Hawke’s Bay – 0.1 m scale https://bit.ly/HBGabrielleAerial

Gisborne – 0.2 m scale https://bit.ly/GisborneGabrielleAerial