Inside DoC’s restructure on the Chatham Islands

The signs were there.

At March’s meeting of the Chatham Islands Conservation Board, operations manager Tiriana Smith said the Department of Conservation office at Te One had its budget cut by 7 percent, “which was expected”.

“There will be more change coming but unsure what that looks like just yet,” Smith said, according to meeting minutes.

DoC’s team on Rēkohu/Wharekauri/Chathams was working with a skeleton crew but had been allowed to side-step a recruitment freeze and hire a lower-level, “B-band” ranger.

A “flora position”, working in the nursery with native plants, had been extended to the end of April, but it wasn’t certain it would continue after that.

Smith hoped the conservation board would get more information at its next meeting.

DoC announced a proposed restructure of its Chatham Islands office on May 7 – the same day as that next board meeting – giving staff until May 22 to make submissions.

The proposal was to cut 10.5 full-time-equivalent jobs to just five.

Last week, the restructure was confirmed, with a DoC statement – devoid of anyone’s name – saying the islands team would be merged with the Wairarapa district, and permanent staff would be cut seven. The changes kick in from July 1.

On-island staff would be bolstered, from October to April, by a team of about 20 secondments, contractors, and volunteers.

“This change is hoped to strengthen our partnerships on the islands, allowing us to work in a more integrated way with imi [Moriori tribe], iwi, and key stakeholders, and improve how we engage with and work alongside the community,” the DoC statement said.

Newsroom asked DoC how many workers on the Chatham Islands didn’t have jobs after the restructure. Alice Heather, the lower North Island operations director, said it was too early in the process to comment.

Conservation board chair Peter de Lange is an Auckland-based plant scientist and Unitec professor, who first visited the islands in 1996. He was careful to say his comments were that of an individual, and didn’t reflect the views of the board.

“The Department of Conservation is required to adjust to changing budgets,” he says.

“The Chathams is a case in point; losing a permanent presence of key staff from those islands may not seem ideal but the expense of keeping them there, and the return on that investment, is not easily justified either with a nationally declining budget.”

The new model is little different to that used in the dying days of the Lands & Survey Department, and, after its creation in 1987, the early part of DoC. “That model worked reasonably well,” De Lange said.

DoC will use local knowledge and input to supplement a strong seasonal presence.

“The Chatham Islanders themselves are now more versed than ever in conservation management – as is evidenced by the successes of the Taiko Trust, the initiatives of the Chatham Islands Landscape & Restoration Trust, and indeed imi through the Hokotehi Trust.”

According to the latest census, the Chathams is home to just over 600 people. The community relies on one other to deal with whatever comes their way. According to its website, “Kiwi ingenuity has nothing on Chatham Islands know-how.”

DoC’s change proposal presentation said staff welfare, and relationships with the communities of the Chathams and Pitt Islands, were central to the department’s concerns.

Yet, initially at least, they weren’t consulted on the proposal.

“I have heard from community leaders and (anecdotally) from DoC staff that they were all pissed off they hadn’t been consulted about this proposal from the outset,” one of our sources says.

“DoC’s leadership could have done so much better than this.”

Chatham Islanders were concerned about the fate of DoC staff, but also raised “fears for the loss of employment opportunities for their young people, the departure of DoC children from school rolls, the quality of future conservation investments, and the implications of a reduced DoC spend in the local economy”.

The presentation said three-year postings of operations managers hadn’t provided consistent leadership, and it was stuck in a “repeating cycle of failure”.

“Staff feedback indicates that the cumulative effect of long-term pressures and issues within the island team are having a detrimental effect on wellbeing.”

Our source asks: “Were the declared problems real?”

But a second source says there were problems staff management. “There was no doubt something needed to be done.”

They, too, believe consultation started terribly, provoking strong reactions.

Strong submissions

It’s understood staff submissions were strong. They were dead against having just five permanent staff.

What would happen in emergencies, like whale strandings, they asked. Would they have enough people to deal with those events, and day-to-day work?

On the chopping block, initially, were the operations manager role, a senior biodiversity ranger, a supervisor, three C-band rangers, and a business support person. Office-based roles would be based in the Wairarapa office, under the proposal.

With the operations manager, supervisor, and senior ranger positions gone, the top on-island role was to be a principal ranger.

DoC’s presentation said the new model would reduce operating costs, freeing up more money for conservation work. One of the department’s goals was to “deliver measurably improved conservation outcomes for the dollars invested (better value for money)”.

Another aspect of the proposal was for the department to lease 10 desks in the Chatham Islands Council building, because the department’s office wasn’t fit for purpose. (The council is designing a shared depot for itself, DoC, fire, and police.)

DoC’s statement from last week confirmed on-island workers will be housed at the council offices, and office roles would be done off-island.

However, it’s understood the business support officer will keep their job, and DoC agreed to keep one C-band ranger. A full-time ranger job on Pitt Island will go, leaving one half-time worker.

While some workers have been offered jobs elsewhere, at this stage two people – the operations manager, and Pitt Island ranger – have not, our second source says.

“I think this is the wrong move. I’m not convinced it’ll work.”

Anonymous source

The Chathams are logistically at the most distant end of DoC’s network. But the islands – 800km off the South Island’s east coast – require the department’s full attention, because it has the highest level of endemism (species found only in that place) of any of Aotearoa’s biogeographic regions.

Aotearoa’s most famous conservation story comes from there – the recovery of the karure/kakaruia/Chatham Island black robin from the brink of extinction, which is hailed internationally as a model of how to save endangered birds.

From just five birds in 1980 – including the last breeding pair, Old Blue and Old Yellow – the population on Rangatira Island today has reached more than 250 individuals.

And it was all thanks to a dedicated team from the Wildlife Service, a forerunner to DoC. This work highlights the importance of DoC’s presence on the Chatham Islands.

Indeed, in last week’s press statement, DoC said the Chathams were among the country’s most important conservation places, with unique wildlife like karure, tāiko/ Chatham Island petrel, and parea/Chatham Island wood pigeon.

Our first source says some of the Chathams’ flora and fauna are at risk of extinction but DoC’s resources on the islands have never reflected the scale or the reach of the needs. 

With its new model, DoC is applying “mainland thinking” to the islands, our source says.  

“The Chathams could be a soaring example of how to succeed under these challenging circumstances. But it isn’t.

“That could well explain why DoC struggles to appoint new staff and managers to the islands. The Chathams have acquired a reputation for being a fraught place to work.”

The department’s retreat turns the Chathams into the problem, our source says, adding: “Retreat is not an improvement.”

The union, the Public Service Association, which helped to negotiate changes to the DoC proposal, might claim the final model as a win, by shifting DoC from five permanent employees to seven.

However, our second source says: “I think this is the wrong move. I’m not convinced it’ll work.”

As it is, a lot of expertise will be leaving the island. “This is a big change. It will be a real challenge not having management on-island.”