Tapuika Iwi Authority trustee and Te Maru o Kaituna River Authority chairman Dean Flavell says the new wetland is a major step towards achieving goals set by tangata whenua and the community.
"We set a target through Te Tini a Tuna — the Kaituna River Action Plan, of restoring 200 hectares of wetland in the Kaituna catchment by 2029. The Te Pourepo project is helping to deliver on that and on our vision of a healthy Kaituna awa that's protected for current and future generations," he says.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council is leading and funding the project which has been made possible through a land purchasing partnership by two local iwi.
Tapuika and Ngati Whakaue banded together to buy 28 hectares of Crown-owned land beside the Kaituna River last year, and they have now made a significant portion of it available for regional council to restore as wetland.
Stage one works have focused on 22 hectares of that Māori-owned block known as Tumu Kawa. Consenting processes were completed last year.
Physical works began with a karakia (site blessing) led by Liam on January 15 this year, and six weeks of earthworks followed.
Old inlet structures were replaced with more fish-friendly ones, and the area was then reconnected to the river via the adjacent existing wetland during March spring tides.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council project manager Courtney Bell says the new wetland is now finding its water balance nicely, and she's looking forward to replanting the area with 30,000 native wetland plants this spring.
"We're also working on plant and animal pest control programmes so that target habitat types can re-establish successfully, and at-risk wetland birds like North Island fernbird, spotless crake and the threatened matuku (Australasian bittern) can thrive there.
''We've already seen birds such as pied stilts, banded dotterel, royal spoonbill, white-faced heron, mallard ducks and grey teal, among others, using the new wetland area," she said.
The Māori-owned Tumu Kawa block is adjacent to the Lower Kaituna Wildlife Management Reserve which contains a small hectare remnant of the once vast wetland taonga (treasure) that used to cover the lower Kaituna plains.
The area was prized for the tūna (eels), flax and kahikitea forests that lived there, but those values were lost when most of the plains were drained and converted to grazing pasture in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
The reserve is administered by Department of Conservation in partnership with Fish and Game New Zealand. It contains 42 hectares of grazing land which will also be retired and restored as part of the Te Pourepo project.
The overall project is being delivered in four stages over four years.
It involves a suite of works including installation of 'fish friendly' water intake controls, earthworks to assist with wetland formation, an extensive planting programme, ongoing weed control efforts, and rehydration of the former floodplain area. It will grow the existing wetland remnant by almost one third of it's current size, restoring a natural area to better support the wellbeing of local wildlife and people.
Find out more, see videos and follow project progress at
www.boprc.govt.nz/kaitunawetland.
