Jacinta Buchanan (left), of Tūrangi Garden Club, presents its donation to Project Tongariro's Shirley Potter.
Jacinta Buchanan (left), of Tūrangi Garden Club, presents its donation to Project Tongariro's Shirley Potter.
Well-manicured gardens and wild wetlands might not have much in common, but in Tūrangi they have been working together for a shared goal.
The Tūrangi Garden Club recently made a $3000 donation to Project Tongariro for use in its restoration project Te Matapuna Wetlands.
Project Tongarirois a conservation organisation that oversees several local initiatives including Greening Taupō, Predator Free Taupō and Kids Greening Taupō.
The funds for the donation were raised through the club’s annual Garden Ramble event in November when 16 avid gardeners across the southern half of Lake Taupō opened their gardens for public viewing.
The event is usually supported by long-time sponsor Bayleys Tūrangi and new sponsor Ryman Healthcare, and means the proceeds of public tickets could be given to a charitable cause.
The garden club selects a local charity each year to receive funds from the ramble, with Project Tongariro being the highlighted cause this year.
The vast Te Matapuna Wetlands. Photo / Project Tongariro
Apart from the local initiatives, Project Tongariro also co-ordinates two major restoration projects: the bush around Lake Rotopounamu in Tongariro National Park, and at Te Matapuna Wetlands adjacent to Motuoapa on Lake Taupō's southeastern edge.
The wetlands project, which costs about $25,000 a year to manage, was this year’s beneficiary of Tūrangi Garden Club’s donation.
Although wetlands might not sound like beautiful or appealing places, they hold a huge number of species important to New Zealand’s landscape, said conservancy botanist Nick Singers in a report to Project Tongariro.
“To most people, wetlands aren’t the most favoured place to recreate unless you want to shoot a few ducks in the season or paddle a kayak around a lagoon.
“It’s not as easy to go for a Sunday stroll through a wetland as you can do in a native forest.
“They are often wet, muddy and smelly and to the greater population are regarded as being ‘wasteland’ which could be better used as a dairy farm.”
The bittern (matuku-hūrepo) is critically endangered, and needs wetlands to survive.
However, wetlands, including Te Matapuna, were home to important, threatened native species, said Project Tongariro.
“The wetland supports populations of two globally threatened species of birds, New Zealand dabchick and Australasian bittern, and an exceptionally high diversity of plant and bird species, and is thus of special value for maintaining the genetic and ecological diversity of the region.
“The wetland is an important breeding area for various waterfowl including three types of cormorant, black swan, three types of duck, and scaup.
“The wetland is of special value for its endemic species and communities.
“Sixteen endemic species of birds have been recorded in the area.
“The wetland regularly supports approximately 4 per cent of the New Zealand population of black swan.”
According to Stats NZ, in pre-human New Zealand, wetlands covered 9.2 per cent of Aotearoa’s land cover.
Now, it accounts for just 0.9 per cent of land.
Project Tongariro has added thousands of plants to the 1500ha site in an effort to restore the wetlands’ health, as well as removing rubbish, weeding and maintaining the area.
