$500,000 revamp for Mt Bruce

A $500,000 REVAMP is being planned for Pukaha Mt Bruce's information centre as part of a plan to turn it into Wairarapa's iconic tourist attraction.
Already the native bird reserve's board of management has been revamped and is now headed by Masterton Mayor Bob Francis.
"The project is ambitious," Mr Francis said. "Mt Bruce is a wonderful facility that simply needs a revamp."
Designs are being drawn up to remodel the visitor information centre at a cost of around $500,000. This will include much more interactive technology explaining how the breeding programme occurs at the reserve. A state-of-the-art learning centre focusing on conservation is also planned.
The money is coming from several funding sources, which Mr Francis says he'll be able to announce soon.
An additional $350,000 has already been confirmed from central government to build a track, which will wind its way up into the upper reaches of the Mt Bruce bush allowing people to experience more of the virgin bush that once covered the Wairarapa valley.
The rearrangement of the management structure is the first for the centre in 20 years.
Mr Francis freely admits Pukaha Mt Bruce is where his future energies will lay in the next few years once he has stood down as Masterton's mayor in October 2007.
He resigns at the local body elections after 21 years as mayor, the longest serving mayor in New Zealand behind Sir Barry Curtis of Manukau city, at 23 years.
He also admits it's not for the love of native birds or the environment that he's driven in this direction.
"It's the project which I really want to see go ahead. Everything about it has the hallmarks of Wairarapa and its solid reputation is there to be handed to us on a plate to expand."
Management of the native bird reserve was re-arranged in February this year to form the Pukaha Mt Bruce Board, with Mr Francis taking on board the chairmanship.
The National Wildlife Centre Trust has taken a sideways step instead of the being the governing body, and now shares an advisory role with Rangitane o Wairarapa and the Department of Conservation.
Consultants, URS New Zealand, have just completed a strategy for economic sustainability and it's within this report that the move to make major upgrades of the centre and tracks was suggested.
The history of the Pukaha Mt Bruce reserve goes back to the 1870s when the Crown purchased most of 70-mile bush, surveyed, sold and cleared it.
The Mt Bruce block of 942ha was retained as Forest Reserve, bounded by Maori land across the northeastern boundary, the rest in private farm ownership.
For the next 100 years, the NZ Forest Service was the primary agency with the Wildlife Service responsible for the birds within a 55ha area.
In 1948, Dr Geoffrey Orbell re-discovered the supposed extinct Takahe in the Murchison mountains and in 1955 Elwyn Welch set up aviaries on his farm at Mt Bruce to breed Takahe.
In 1958, four Takahe chicks were moved to the present reserve site and in 1962 the centre was established as the Mt Bruce Native Bird Reserve with an emphasis on breeding and research.
In 1987, the Department of Conservation took over from the Wildlife and Forest Services and the centre was administered under the National Wildlife Centre Trust Board.