Newsroom has a good article on the current NZ government ending the Predator Free 2050 Ltd agency in the recent Budget announcement.

Predator Free 2050 Ltd was set up by John Key's National government in 2016. The agency has led the ambitious project to achieve landscape-scale removal, and aspirationally national eradication, of some of NZ's worst predatory mammal pests.

The agency found out it was ending on the day the budget was announced.

Apparently the government is trying to make reassuring noises that everyting's fine and the predator free work will continue under the management of the Department of Conservation. That's the same department that keeps getting its budget cut and today announced a further 84 proposed job losses.

Hopefully all the conservation gains that have been made over the past decade can be sustained.

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/05/26/it-was-a-bombshell-govt-culls-pest-eradication-company/

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/562316/department-of-conservation-proposes-cutting-84-jobs-primarily-affecting-women

#PredatorFree2025 #nzpol #Pests #conservation #nz

‘It was a bombshell’: Govt culls pest eradication company

Is the financially stretched Department of Conservation best to lead the country’s cooperative mission to eradicate pests by 2050?

Newsroom
@joncounts Firing people who are experts at ridding Aotearoa of vermin may shorten this Government's tenure...