Wetlands are a big deal in the Bay of Plenty. Less than 1% of their original extent remains and our largest remnant – the Lower Kaituna Wildlife Management Reserve is fast becoming an even bigger deal.
Continue Reading...Archives For 30/11/1999
Ipipiri - the eastern Bay of Islands
Project Island Song is on its way! Now that all the stoats and rats have gone from the eastern Bay’s islands, the Guardians of the Bay of Islands, a local community group, can get on with the job of planting trees and bringing back the birds.
After a day's hard work creating the Project Island Song Centre
Here I am (middle left) with Guardians of the Bay of Islands volunteers and families in front of the newly revamped Project Island Song Centre, in Otehei Bay on Urupukapuka Island.
Lots of hard work was done that weekend bringing light back to a cold grey building. The launch of the centre is today – just ahead of Conservation Week. Over a hundred people including kids from three local schools, kaumatua and kuia from the local community as well as DOC and ExploreNZ staff and others passionate about restoring the islands, will be helping to celebrate this occasion.
The Centre, staffed by Guardians volunteers, will be opening at Labour Weekend. So come and visit! But before you leave the mainland, you can do your bit to keep these islands pest-free – please stop, check your gear for pests (rats, mice, stoats, ants, weed seeds) and then go!
Want to know more about Project Island Song? Go to:
Wouldn’t it be great if you could create a slice of wild New Zealand in your own backyard?
But where to start?
Well you could start by replacing your weeds with native plants. With a bit of careful planning, consideration and patience…who knows…you could also attract a range of native birds, lizards and invertebrates. I’m organising Wellington City’s 5th Weed Swap on September 19th and hope that once again Wellingtonians will turn out in numbers clutching their garden nasties to swap for free native plants. Since the first Weed Swap in 2005 thousands of native plants have been handed out and tonnes of weeds collected and disposed of.
What is a weed?
In a nutshell it’s an unwanted plant with the potential to cause damage to our native ecosystems. So, for example, you may not think of your agapanthus as a weed but once it escapes into the wild it can become a serious problem, forming tough, dense clusters at the expense of native plants- and they’re very hard to eradicate. In any case, why plant agapanthus when you could plant native rengarenga lilies? Why have a sycamore when you could have a totara? Why let birds disperse holly seeds when they could be dispersing the native tarata or pigeonwood?
Woody Weed- Weedbusters mascot
75% of the weeds that are invading our bush and replacing our native plants originated in peoples’ gardens usually as popular garden plants. At Weed Swaps people can get involved in learning how to identify, eradicate and dispose of these weeds and kick start their own native garden with a free plant!
For those who want to continue creating their native havens the DOC publication Plant me instead offers suggestions on garden alternatives to weeds. Most, but not all the alternatives are natives but if you are going to concentrate on natives then try to get eco-sourced plants (plants propagated from local areas). For a start, they’ll adapt more easily to your garden and if you plant a range of shrubs, climbers, and ground covers that provide shelter and all-year- round fruit, seeds and nectar you’ll have a higher chance of attracting native birds, lizards and insects!
Weed Swap 2008- Civic Square
So how does the Weed Swap work?
Simply bring in your weed, we’ll help you identify it and then you choose from a range of native plants- one weed and one free plant per person. There are spot prizes for particularly ‘nasty’ weeds and information and displays on gardening to attract native animals. It’s at Wellington’s Civic Square, 1-4pm, Saturday 19 September.
Hope to see you there!
Community conservation efforts in Wellington
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Our partnership with Department of Corrections is proving so successful that Tauranga community service workers are now queuing up to do conservation work.
A great deal of this success can be credited to Ranger Steve, who just seems to have a knack for being able to make connections with people and get them working with him.
Ranger Steve in action
Over the last month, Steve has had 3-5 gangs of up to 10 people, working four days a week on maintaining and upgrading walking tracks in the Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park.
It’s hard labour; they walk up to 10km each day, lift heavy materials, pull & cut weeds, but when they line up for duty allocation, these convicted criminals are asking to go to the bush as their job of choice.
We’ve estimated that in the last month alone, the Corrections programme has contributed more than 3800 man hours of work that if contracted out, could have cost DOC more than $25 000.
That’s a significant contribution, but the benefits are more than financial and both parties appear to be winning.
Many of the community service workers have sentences of 400hours or more, that means Steve has been seeing a lot of them and the changes are signficant – they’re becoming motivated, taking pride in their work, learning new skills and connecting with the land – they’re really interested in the plants and animals that live in the forest and Steve is teaching them along the way.
Part of the goal of Conservation Week is to get new audiences involved in conservation – Steve’s already doing that on a daily basis, but we’re also running a special Conservation Week event this year with community service workers where they’ll be finishing off the weed clearing and carpark upgrade work they’ve been doing at the Kaimai Summit with a planting day.
