Kokopu Primary School pupils prepare to plant trees to improve Mangere River water quality.
Kokopu primary School pupils last week planted 500 trees on a dairy farm alongside the Mangere River, with another 4000 trees to later be planted on other farms to help local efforts to improve water quality.
And a further 16,000 plants have been distributed for planting around properties in Akerama, Whakapara, Ruatangata and Poroti for river restoration.
The school planting day was a collaboration between Nga Kaitiaki o Nga Wai Maori (NKONWM) representing seven local hapu, the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management Group (IKHMG) and the Northland Regional Council's Mangere stakeholder catchment group.
IKHMG operations manager Willy Wright said the karamu, harakeke (flax), ti kouka (cabbage tree), kanuka and manuka plants which youngsters put into the ground last week were among more than 300,000 plants donated by the hapu's Te Arai Native Nursery to improve water quality in the Kaipara Harbour catchment.
The Te Iri o Hau Charitable Trust with financial support from the Lottery Commission and Reconnecting Northland has established a nursery at Te Arai to provide plants free of charge for riparian and conservation planting in the sub-catchment areas of the Kaipara Harbour.
"Plants are provided to mitigate the effect of contaminants in the waterways."
The IKHMG and NIWA have completed studies which show the levels of nitrogen, phosphate and sediment flow into the Kaipara Harbour and the plants are provided to mitigate the effect of these contaminants in the waterways.
The Te Arai Native Nursery is able to provide these plants free because of financial support from the Lottery Commission and Reconnecting Northland and by using the profit from sale of commercially priced plants for the development at Te Arai that is being undertaken by the Te Uri o Hau Settlement Trust and its partners.
In conjunction with Northland Regional Council, Auckland Council, Living Waters, (The DoC Fonterra Partnership), Dairy NZ, Nga Kaitiaki o Nga Wai Maori, Reconnecting Northland and IKHMG the Te Arai Native Nursery has distributed over 300,000 conservation plants this year to sub-catchments of the Kaipara Harbour.
This is the first year of an ongoing Te Uri o Hau project called Project Mahuhu, which is aligned to the IKHMG's vision of a healthy and productive Kaipara Harbour but also includes components for training, employment and research.
About 45 Year 5-8 Kokopu School students got involved through Soozee McIntyre of Whitebait Connection, who organised the children, teachers and parents to carry out planting last week on the 93ha Kokopu dairy farm where siblings Shayne and Charmaine O'Shea milk 380 cows.
Although the Mangere, which flows into the Wairua River and Kaipara Harbour, placed toward the bottom of Northland's monitored rivers in the past, that's no longer the case. In 2014 the catchment received a NZ River Award for being the fourth-equal most improved river nationally.
DairyNZ catchment engagement leader Helen Moodie is on the catchment group striving to improve the water quality of the river. She worked with local farmers to get more than 3000 plants to 10 of the 18 dairy farmers in the catchment who took up the offer of donated plants.
"Dairy farmers play a key role in community projects and riparian planting on-farms will contribute to improving local waterways," she says. "DairyNZ scientists say keeping stock out of water and having grass filters or native plantings along streams really helps improve water quality.
"Robust scientific work has shown it results in significant reductions in waterway contaminants, especially sediment and E. coli that have been identified as key issues for Northland's waterways."
NKONWM chairman Hona Edwards, of Poroti, said the riverside planting would help hapu improve water quality, fish habitat, increase fish stocks and build positive and enduring community relationships by mitigating against sedimentation and providing essential habitat for native fish and their food supply, freshwater insects.
"This event would allow more opportunity for NKONWM to continue to get more plants in and around the catchment and tributaries that head back to the Kaipara Harbour," he said.
* Dairy waterways are planted with millions of native trees to create strong riparian margins to "sop up" nutrients.
As of June last year, almost 27,000km of dairy waterways had been fenced, and more than 99.4 per cent of 44,386 regular stock crossing points on dairy farms had bridges or culverts.
DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle says farmers have personally invested over $1 billion to protect their waterways by planting and fencing their riparian margins. DairyNZ spent more than $18.5 million on research and development, and a further $10.6m on environmental work last year.