Book yourself on an ARC planting workshop

20 March 2009

Retired Auckland architect David Butler has embarked on an ambitious project to restore 90km of the banks of the Kumeu River.

The project, which involves clearing scrub and weeds, eradicating pests and replanting to return the river banks to their native vegetated state, grew from a community concern about the welfare of the Kumeu River.

Along with labour from the Department of Corrections, he has so far planted more than 3000 native plants and trees along a 200-metre stretch of the river bank, and he hopes others will get behind the project.

“Everyone I talk to reckons it’s a wonderful idea,” Mr Butler says.

Mr Butler will be talking about his restoration project at an Auckland Regional Council (ARC) Riparian Zone Management workshop on 22 April.

The ARC is running a series of workshops across the Auckland region, so far workshops are scheduled for 22 April at Taupaki Hall, Kumeu, and 23 May at the Warkworth Masonic Hall, Warkworth.
ARC’s Environmental Management Chair Dianne Glenn says the workshops could end up encouraging planting projects which could have a huge benefit to our region’s waterways.
“Unfortunately almost all of the land in our rural areas has been disturbed in some way by human activities, particularly by land clearance that has removed a lot of the original native bush cover. When native trees and bush are striped from streams and river banks it can have disastrous consequences on the water quality and aquatic life in them - that’s why restoring native vegetation is so valuable.”

Workshops cover:

• How to plan and prepare a riparian zone management plan using field sheets to assist with the collection of data, planning, and implementation of the riparian programme
• Simple planting solutions that can be used to establish native vegetation on a broad range of riparian sites
• Case studies
• Field trip to look at a restoration project
• Learn about the riparian zone management strategy, guideline and planting guide for the Auckland region
• The reasons for riparian management and important riparian issues in the Auckland region

Having never been involved in a major planting project before, Mr Butler says he has learned many lessons along the way.

“I’ve discovered that if you don’t get the pests under control in the beginning – it’s a bit of a major. Some areas of our planting were plagued by rabbits – so we needed to replant, but we learned from that experience.”

Auckland Regional Council spokesperson Joanne Walton says in the past a range of people have gone to the workshops including individual landowners, iwi, community groups, consultants, developers, landscape architects, contractors, and planning and regulatory staff from local and regional councils.

The workshops cost a small fee. Registrations for the April 22 workshop close on 3 April 2009.

ENDS

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