Our annual “Friends of Te Ara Kākāriki” event was held at Lincoln University in July, marking 20 years of the Trust’s achievements to restore native habitat in ‘greendots” across the Selwyn District.
The event was a chance to celebrate the planting of almost 44,000 indigenous seedlings in 2023 and the upcoming milestones of a quarter million seedlings planted overall, due to be reached this year.
Over 75,000 of those seedlings have been planted by the trusts Jobs for Nature team over the past three years with Co Chair Craig Pauling acknowledging the great mahi of the past and present field teams who have done an amazing job not only planting but maintaining sites, carrying out pest control, fencing and other restoration tasks.
Jobs for Nature finishes in July and the trust plans to keep the field team employed and continue the planting momentum by offering a professional restoration services programme.
Guest speaker, Isaac Conservation and Wildlife Trust CEO, Rob Kinney spoke about the trust’s conservation activities on 1100 hectares of rehabilitated quarry lands. They assist conservation through their captive breeding programmes for several threatened birds including whio (blue duck), kākāriki karaka( orange fronted parakeet) and kakī (Black stilt). The trust undertakes historic building conservation and is also planting areas of native eco-sourced species to improve biodiversity.
Together Craig, one of Te Ara Kākāriki’s founding trustees and Rob awarded Nicki Shackelton the Diana Isaac cup. The award is presented every two years to a greendot landowner for their outstanding effort to plant native species in the Selwyn District. Nicky has a lifestyle block near Lincoln and started planting with Te Ara Kākāriki volunteers in 2017 and 2018 and has now planted nearly one hectare. Her initial goal was to “create a place of solace, a place for people to sit and listen to the birds and also learn about NZ native flora and fauna”. She has well and truly achieved this, enjoying the site daily and making the greendot available to several groups carrying out research.
Dr Colin Meurk (ONZM) pictured above, reflected on 15 years of transformational progress by Te Ara Kākāriki to plant stepping-stones of habitat. “Native plantings also importantly connect communities to nature and increase people’s interaction with wildlife” said Colin. With less than 1% of native vegetation remaining in the Selwyn District, Colin explained that even very small ‘greendots’ help to protect and restore native plants and birds. Small, unassuming remnants of native plants in places like roadsides, water-races and fence-lines are a nursery for natural regeneration.
Te Ara Kākāriki has four volunteer greendot planting days this spring. To take part register on our volunteering page.
