Restoring the Retaruke

WHO SAYS farmers don't care about the environment? A family in the remote Kaitieke Valley, near Owhango, is doing its share.
The Steele family ? Rachel and Richard, their two sons and sons' partners ? began the Retaruke Restoration Project after buying a neighbouring farm 18 months ago.
The purchase increased the size of their property to 1500ha. They were already conservationists when they shifted to the 45km-long Kaitieke Valley 12 years ago, Mrs Steele said.
The Retaruke River and its many tributaries flow through the valley and down to the Whanganui River.
Together with their own land, their purchase gave the Steeles 7km of the Retaruke River as a southern boundary.
Their new property included a 124ha piece of bush with kahikatea trees 800 years old.
It had been illegally logged for two years by a previous owner. Some of the massive trees were cut and left to rot because they could not be removed.
"We got a bit upset about that," Mrs Steele said.
The new property also completely surrounded some Conservation Department land, and bounded Neilson's Conservation Area.
The family's first thought was that if the bush was restored they could bring tieke (saddlebacks) back into the valley that was named for them.
"After talking to DoC, it seems that isn't a realistic ambition, because they nest too low and the rats clean them up," Mrs Steele said.
But the land has plenty of other species worth preserving. "There are kiwi, and the streams have blue duck. There are short and long-tailed bats.
"We think there may be native snails, but we haven't found any live ones yet. We have seen the giant worms which they predate on.
"There are lots of wetas, and green hooded orchids.
"Given encouragement, we may get kokako back. And we have North Island robins, tomtits, riflemen, tuis, bellbirds, pigeons and a host of insects, possibly not all even named."
DoC has been counting and banding blue ducks (whio) on the tributaries.
The Steeles' first move toward restoration was about 7km of fencing for the bush along the river. All stock has now been kept out for 12 months and "a sparse but visible carpet of young seedlings" has sprung up.
The Queen Elizabeth 2 Trust will help pay to fence 124ha the family has covenanted. The Steeles will also receive $36,000, spread over about four years, from government's Biodiversity Fund.
And they've had $5000 from the Whanganui River Enhancement Trust ? which they used to pay for fencing.
Next will come goat and pig control. Goats are trapped and some can be harvested and sold.
"We would like to protect the forest and everything in it.
To do that we have really got to wage war against feral cats, stoats and weasels. We are constantly killing cats, but we haven't yet got into the other trapping systematically."
Possum numbers were low, Mrs Steele said, because the farm was in a Tb control area and the regional council had targeted the furry pests.
On the farmed parts of the property bush has been allowed to grow back in gullies. When it got dense enough stock stopped going into it.
Poplars were being planted or bush left to grow on steep unstable land.
The property bordered several reserves and Whanganui National Park was just across the river. Mrs Steele hoped its network of bush corridors would allow native wildlife to move safely and freely.
The land of the restoration project could prove to be a better wildlife sanctuary than the national park, which she said was "full of goats and pigs, and pig dogs".