Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research and Predator Free Rakiura have teamed up to investigate tackling the world’s largest pest eradication programme.

The four-year, $2.8 million research partnership will look at ways to rid the 180,000-hectare Rakiura/Stewart Island of possums, rats, feral cats and hedgehogs.

Predator Free Rakiura project director Campbell Leckie says the agreement will enable a significant number of individual research projects each year, exploring predator behaviour, distribution and density, and the social and economic impacts of a project of this size and complexity.

Forest & Bird Spokesperson Dean Baigent-Mercer says some Rakiura forests are already collapsing, with tōtara being eaten to death by possums.

He says Predator Free Rakiura would be a major draw card for nature tourism and the local economy, and for the expression of mātauranga Māori.