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News and Features
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Monday 6th February to Friday 10th February
Protected by a snow-topped mountain, steeped in historic significance and pounded by the restless Tasman Sea, Taranaki is a region like no other in New Zealand. Your team will travel down to Taranaki to participate on the Taranaki Catchment care project.
This project focuses on caring for the health of our waters, restoring some of our exceptional habitats and providing homes for threatened native plants and wildlife. The team will continue the restoration of two beautiful freshwater lakes and wetlands at Nowell’s Lakes, so that water quality is improved and wetland habitats are provided for native birds and fish. The Nowell’s Lakes project began in 2002 when the lake gully was retired from farming. The first planting was established in 2003 when 6,000 trees were planted. Since this time a further 8,000 native trees and grasses have been established, including cabbage trees, flax, pohutukawa, kowhai and totara. There are also specialist gardens which included swan and hebe plants that provide nectar for Monarch butterflies. 200 Pimelia Prostrata (NZ Daphne) have also been planted for the native Taranaki moth, which is the only plant the moth caterpillars feed on. This project is run as part of our Catchment Care programme which provides support for practical water-catchment care projects across New Zealand.
Transform a Farm into Forest - the Cuehaven Project
Monday 30th January to Friday 3rd February
Join us on the CUE haven project and help transform farmland into a wetland and forest reserve that everyone can enjoy for generations to come. Located on the eastern coastline of the beautiful Kaipara harbour near the Mt. Auckland/Atuauni Scenic Reserve, approximately 14 acres of the property is already covered in native forest and wetlands. This week the team will be constructing a track including building steps and boardwalks.
The aim is to create a sustainable forest eco system by restoring connectivity between the forest remnants. This will have the added benefit of enhancing biodiversity and wildlife, and also provide headwater protection of the stream tributary that discharges into the Kaipara Harbour.
The forest on the property contains a diverse mix of primarily broadleaf species with a lesser number of podocarps and karaka, nikau, rawarewa, puriri, kahikatea and pukatea present amongst the canopy of taraire. There is also kanuka and manuka scrubland with low density maturing kahikatea, totara and tanekaha emerging through the canopy. Podocarp trees boast a lineage that stretches back to the time when New Zealand was part of the super continent of Gondwana.
There are numerous Tui, Fantail, Fernbird, Grey Warbler, Kingfisher, Paradise Shelduck, New Zealand Pipit, Pukeko and Ring-necked Pheasants on the property. Also the forest remnants support Morepork (native owls).
Be a Tidy Kiwi Litter Survey Day
Sunday 5th February
Help out on this exciting project where we aim to educate people on how to act more
sustainably. We’ve teamed up with Keep NZ Beautiful to find out how people deal with their waste and we’ll be out and about in Sandringham carrying out a social litter survey. Once the survey is completed a pack which aims to educate people on how to dispose of their rubbish will be sent out and then we’ll carry out another survey so we can discover whether our education has inspired people to act sustainably.
Get Involved!
Connecting People with Parks
Are you interested in making a difference to parks, wildlife and biodiversity in your local community?
Conservation Volunteers NZ is excited to announce its Connecting People with Parks program. We’ll be getting out there and supporting local conservation projects and people who want to be involved in their own community and contribute to their local environment.
Our projects will include improving wildlife at Auckland Domain by removing predators, like rats and possums, planting to restore the health of the Whau River, learning how to look after seedlings at our plant nursery at Mt Eden, restoration of the Purewa Valley in Kohimarama, as well as many more exciting projects including Waikowhai and Waiatarua Reserves, Tahuna Torea, Hendry Reserve, Roy Clements, and Meola Creek.
If you’re passionate, want to get involved in conservation and your community or have an environmental project you need assistance with we would love to hear from you.
Want more information?
If you would like to know more about becoming involved in Connecting People with Parks please call Fiona on 0800 56 76 86 or email info@conservationvolunteers.co.nz.
Alternatively check out the conservation projects we have on at Conservation Connect.
Punakaiki Coastal Restoration Project
Help with planting to create an ecological corridor spanning the mountains to the sea. Perched on the edge of the Southern Alps, Punakaiki encompasses spectacular limestone landscapes, river gorges, caves, coastal and inland walks and the world renowned Pancake Rocks and blowholes. The coastline is the natural habitat of the Little Blue Penguin and the only nesting ground of the Westland Black Petrel. The forests bear nikau palms and rata trees that are hundreds of years old. The project will transform existing open pastures into dense native forest and enhance habitat for the only breeding site in the world for the Westland Black Petrel.
We invite you to join us on this project. Punakaiki projects run from Monday to Friday every second week . Check out Conservation Connect for more details.
Making history at Nowell's Lake
Hawera's Nowell's Lake was the scene of a special tree planting on Wednesday, 20th April, to mark the 40th anniversary of a great turning point in creating wetlands around the world.
Volunteers from Catchment Care, a partnership between Conservation Volunteers New Zealand and Fonterra, planted 40 kowhai trees at the lake to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands, to prevent their loss. Ramsar, named after a town in Iran, recognises the important ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural, and recreational value.
Fonterra Whareroa staff, nine local schools, eight community groups and the local Rotary Club have already planted 18,000 native plants at Nowell's Lakes. This week's planting will continue the restoration of two beautiful freshwater lakes and wetlands, so that water quality is improved and wetland habitats are provided for native birds and fish.
Catchment Care volunteers will do two days work at the lakes - weeding around native trees that were previously planted and tending the special endangered species garden. This garden contains plants such as Pimelea, Pikao sedges and eighteen species of flax all which are rare in the Taranaki.
The two lakes and wetland cover seven hectares were formed by ground-fed fresh water which has become trapped behind a coastal sand dune belt. In 2006 a walkway was built around the lakes so that schools and local communities could enjoy the area and learn and appreciate wetland environments.
Leana Hunt, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Fonterra, says Nowell's Lake is just one of the Catchment Care projects Conservation Volunteers will be involved in Taranaki. Communities already involved with Catchment Care have started to see the benefits.
"We're working with school and conservation groups, farmers and local councils, to look after our important wetlands. These are local people, getting involved in local projects to enhance and protect the catchment areas which make each area unique," she says.
