Mataia Restoration Project Newsletter

April 2010

Hello family, friends and supporters of the Mataia Restoration Project (MRP)

A year has sped by since I last put index finger to computer keyboard to share the life and times of our special piece of New Zealand.

And heaps has been happening!

WINTER 2009

Firstly, back to planting time last year – well even before that really;the all important fencing. Once again the Rodney Council Natural Heritage Fund awarded us $5000 to put towards fencing the margins of the Mataia Stream. This is now fenced on both side from the bridge just below the Homestead right out to the Kaiparaharbour – about 4 km in all!

And then the all important planting. First it was Phil and Sus Hall and their families who came to plant the trees they had donated to the project from their April 2009 wedding at the Homestead. We planted a further section of the Homestead Bush and started on the banks of the Mataia Stream just below the Homestead.

Hall and Hunter Planting (Guess who in the yellow, arms outstretched!!)

Andhere I must mention new additions to the planting team – Ella Rose Hood and Cooper Chase Hall. Congratulations to parents and of course, grandparents!!

Next came MeadowbankSchool and the Trees for Survival program. They have begun to plant around a small wetland which feeds into the Mataia Stream quite close to the Homestead. Supporters included three adults from Rotary who are sponsors of the program in this school.

Rotarians help MeadowbankSchool pupils with their planting

And for the third year in a row the Auckland Regional Council’s Environmental Initiatives Fund gave us $4000 to put towards purchasing plants.

We had a family and Friends planting in July – the weather was bleak but the plants loved it and have been looking great

Family and Friends Planting along the Mataia Creek

In Memory

Two members of our team passed away last year – Kevin’s brother Bruce, and Louise Phillips, wife of Jake and dear friend of Jenny and Shane. We had two very special times with friends and family planting a matai for Bruce and a kowhai for Lou in recognition of the work they have done for the project.

SPRING 2009

Spring saw a proliferation of weeds and Kevin and I doing battle for several weeks with machete and spade, back pack sprayer and Roundup to give our plants the best of chances to survive.

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2009 - 2010

Summer and now Autumn here in the north have not been kind to our plants. We have had no significant rain since November and it is now that we understand why we are advised to plant at 1 meter spacing. In a year such as this when we have higher than normal death rates, we still have enough trees to effect a canopy cover within a couple of years.

Since January we have had the assistance of international volunteers from the HelpX website who work for 4 hours a day in exchange for meals and accommodation. Thanks to Julian and Thomas from Germany and Chris and Shems from England

Julian Vogel, HelpX volunteer from Germany, and Kevin releasing the TFS planting.

FUNDING

A huge boost for our restoration project has come from the Department of Conservation’s Biodiversity Fund. We applied to the fund for items to assist us with pest control having read that just fencing and excluding stock is not enough to restore biodiversity to our native bush. Pests especially possums, rats, stoats, and cats eat a huge amount of seeds and flora and fauna.

With the money we have been granted we have:

  • Repaired a track in around the base of the cliffs bordering the harbour. (My dad, Peter Gardner put this in, in the 1960’s with the bulldozer which nowrests by the homestead.) This has allowed us easy access to the area by 4 wheeled bike, donated to the project by Manaia Properties Ltd.
  • Purchased 100 Timms Traps for possum control
  • Purchased 80 stoat traps for mustelid control
  • Purchased 100 tracking tunnels to check for rodent activity
  • Purchased 250 bait stations to hold poison for rodent control

Shane and Jack checking out the Cliffs Track

Shems, HelpX volunteer, marking new Timms Traps

Kevin takes delivery of 80 stoat traps

PEST CONTROL

Onto pest control results

We have killed 70 possums in the past 3 weeks! Firstly a cyanide run took out 32 and since then the new Timms traps are proving very successful. Special thanks to Shems and Chris, our latest HelpX’s from the UK who labeled traps, helped Kevin put them out, check and reset them. This is a daily job until we get to a 3% number in traps set, an acceptable population.

Kevin laying cyanide on the new Cliffs Track

The Results

Other jobs on the list include:

  • 80 stoat trapswill have marking completed before they are put out.
  • Tracking tunnels have beencollected from the manufacturer this week and we will put out 10 tracking lines at random areas of the restoration area. They will be left for three weeks, then baited with peanut butter and inked cards placed in them for one night. This will give us some indication of our rodent population but also will tell us if we have any invertebrates ( e.g. lizards, wetas etc.)
  • Then we will put out the bait stations in a 100m grid over the whole bush area and pulse them with poisoned bait prior to the bird breeding season.
  • This will be followed by a further monitoring using the tracking tunnels.

RECOGNITION

The work, your work with the MRP, is being recognized by other people in the conservation community and Kevin and I were invited to the ARC Conservation Awards evening.

Courtney Gallen (ARC) with Kevin and Gill

WHAT ELSE IS IN THE PIPELINE?

Planting Bees!!!!

MeadowbankSchool pupils with teachers and supporters will be here on June 22nd to continue planting around a wetland area which they started on last year.

Family and friends are of course invited to join that working bee.

The date set for the family and friends planting bee is the weekend of 3rd and 4th July. We will have about 3500 trees to plant on the opposite side of the Mataia Stream to where we planted last year.

Well that just about winds up news from The MRP.

If any of you would like to be actively involved in the pest control part of the project we would love to have you to stay, or if you just want a break from the hustle bustle we would love to have you just to come and stay and “chill out.”

Hope you have had a wonderful summer and we look forward to seeing you sometime over the winter.

Flax and Coprosma at the back of the Homestead Bush

Four years on!!!