Wetlands get 1300 new native plants

Volunteers planted native trees, shrubs and flaxes yesterday near the Poukawa Stream, the outlet of the Pekapeka Wetlands, Pakipaki. Photo/Duncan Brown

Volunteers planted about 1300 native plants yesterday as part of a project to continue the ongoing restoration of the Pekapeka Wetlands, south of Hastings.

About 70 people - mainly members of the Hastings-Havelock North branch of Forest & Bird and their families - turned out to plant the natives on Hawke's Bay Regional Council land alongside the Poukawa Stream, the outlet of the wetlands near SH2.

The regional council's open space development manager, Stephen Cave, said the plantings were part of an overall plan to restore and enhance the wetland and outlet.

"Down the track it is envisaged that this corridor will form the entry to a looped walkway around the northern perimeter of the wetland," Mr Cave said. "This may not be too far away and forms part of the draft Pekapeka Regional Park plan, which we are looking to get formally approved by council later this year."

Pekapeka is one of the few remaining large wetlands of its type in Hawke's Bay. It has a high biodiversity value and the Department of Conservation ranks it as the second most ecologically valuable wetland in the region.

Since 1997 it has had waahi tapu status (sacred) under the Historic Places Act.

Under an agreement between the council and Forest & Bird, the organisation will visit the site regularly to carry out weeding and to water the plants.

It also plans to be involved in further plantings in the years ahead.

Forest & Bird project co-ordinator Linda Johnson said she was pleased with the number of volunteers who turned up on what was a cool, foggy morning yesterday.

"Everybody chipped in and did really well. We were most impressed," she said.

"Next year the kids can go back and see how tall the plants have got."

Mr Cave said the project was "a great mechanism to engage with the community and to realise the restoration and enhancement objectives of HBRC's regional parks".

Forest & Bird contributed about 100 of the native plants to the project.

Honda New Zealand's TreeFund, an initiative under which the car company supplies a number of trees for each vehicle it sells, supplied the rest of the plants.