Environmental Pest Plants
3.3 Present functions and uses The ranges and plateau are mostly forest-clad and provide multiple services at local, regional, and national levels. They provide an important recreation resource for hunters, walkers, trampers, and school groups, who value the cultural heritage and the landscape, but also the indigenous plants and animals. Four wheel drivers, motorbike riders and mountain bikers also value the challenges the terrain offers. The natural heritage of the Kaimai-Mamaku Ranges includes rare vegetation types and vegetation associations, many rare and threatened taxa, including numerous threatened plants, North Island brown kiwi, kokako, short tailed bat, Hochstetter‘s frog, Te Aroha stag beetle, striped skink and kereru. Kereru was historically the subject of cultural harvest. Today cultural and recreational harvest in the ranges and plateaus centres on the deer and pigs that are popular with recreational hunters. The ranges also harbour pest plants and animals, including goats, deer, possums, stoats, and rats, and these pose a serious threat to indigenous wildlife. The ranges are also a repository of historical artefacts, including earthworks, structures, and implements associated with historical timber and mining industries and their associated railway and tramway infrastructure. Foothills and plateaus have agriculture and exotic plantation forest intermixed with indigenous forests, with large areas of horticulture, primarily avocado and kiwifruit. Some of the high points on the Kaimai Range have telecommunications infrastructure, including T.V. aerials and radio transmitters. One river has hydro-electric power generation infrastructure. The ranges play an important role in maintaining water quality for water supply. The ranges also play an important role in the hydrology of the catchments of the Waihou and Tauranga Harbour, as the indigenous forest cover helps to reduce peak flows and buffer streambanks from flood events.
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