By STACEY BODGER
GISBORNE - A bid to restore tuatara to the East Coast has begun with the reintroduction of native coastal plants to a remote island.
Tuatara disappeared from East Cape Island (Whangaokena) when cats and rodents arrived in 1898 during the building of a lighthouse.
When the lighthouse was moved to the mainland in 1922, the pests remained and eventually destroyed all vegetation.
In 1997, the Department of Conservation's Gisborne-Hawkes Bay conservancy won approval at a hui with local iwi to remove rats from the island, with a goal of reintroducing tuatara.
Poison drops have cleared it of all pests.
The department hopes the start of planting this week will encourage insects - the tuatara's main food - to return.
Area conservancy officer Jamie Quirk said the project was one step in a long process to see if the island would again be a suitable tuatara habitat.
The plants are being transferred by helicopter and dug in by a team of 20 department staff and volunteers, including Gisborne man Henare Swann.
His grandfather, Henare Kohere, rescued the sole survivor of the ship Whakapai, which was wrecked on the island in the early 1900s.
Kohere, who worked on the family farm on the mainland, swam almost a kilometre in rough seas to rescue James Bertie and was later honoured by the Royal Humane Society.
Mr Swann said it was a privilege to be part of the island's restoration. "It has played such an important part in my family's heritage and to see it brought back to its original state ... would be magnificent."
Planting project first step in plan to return tuatara
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