The mahi
Planting projects

Matthews Track Working Group is a small community-based working group dedicated to restoring and beautifying the walking track that runs from Sawyers Bay to Port Chalmers in Ōtepoti, Dunedin. 

Through community led mahi, this project is restoring an area of scrubland with riparian planting for the protection of banded kōkopu, bullies, kōura, and īnanga, and to return biodiversity and beautify the area. The group are also restoring the area with ongoing clearing of woody exotics, gorse, broom, sycamore, and blackberry to increase food sources and create connectivity corridors for native birds and endemic admiral butterflies.

In partnership with tourism operators, the Department of Conservation, Project Janszoon, and the community, Abel Tasman Birdsong Trust work to protect and enhance the biodiversity of the Abel Tasman National Park, specifically along the Abel Tasman Track.

The Trust’s enthusiastic volunteers plant and maintain native trees along the coast, and manage the population restoration of some of New Zealand’s precious native species such as the South Island robin/toutouwai and saddleback/tīeke.

The Styx Living Laboratory Trust is a local rivercare group. The trustees, volunteers and staff are passionate about restoring the Pūharakekenui/Styx River catchment and want it to remain clean, healthy and biodiverse for future generations to enjoy. The trust has a long history of working with volunteers to achieve this through monitoring programmes, education events, and restoration activities such as planting.

One of the visions for the Trust is to have a ‘source to sea walkway’ along the 25km catchment. In 2021, the Trust moved into a field centre in the Styx Loop Esplanade Reserve in a house and land owned by Christchurch City Council. This reserve runs for 1km down the river and their plan is to plant native trees along this river side area to improve biodiversity and water quality, and to have a shaded path where people can wander and connect with the awa/river.

In 2023, we provided 900 trees to the Ōpunakē Loop Trail restoration, and we will continue to support this project with another 1,000 trees this year. As a much-loved public walking and cycling trail that offers river access for swimming and camping, it’s no surprise that the restoration work in the area was borne of a community effort.

The core Loop Trail restoration group consists of about 35 members, but they also hold regular working bees with the community and school group – a true team effort! The hard mahi is all in service of a bigger vision: to restore the biodiversity in Ōpunakē and create beautiful green spaces thriving with indigenous life for future generations to enjoy. The trail will celebrate cultural diversity, offer educational and work opportunities, encourage recreational use and a connection with nature, and promote local business ventures.

The goal of this project is to reduce, and ultimately stop erosion of the Harakeke Stream, which is causing damage to the Great Taste Cycle Trail. It aims to engage the local Tasman community to enhance their local walking and cycling route, which is also used by over 5,000 Great Taste Trail riders each year. The landowner (whose property the stream and trail crosses) is supportive of the project and is working with the Trust and the local community, including the Tasman School, to make this project happen.

Northern Pegasus Bay (Hurunui) Coastcare Society is focused on native tree planting, wetland protection and dune restoration in the area north of the Waipara River to Ashworths Beach. The group is also leading recreational opportunities through the creation and management of walking and cycle trails.

The planting project is focused on two wetland areas, a small pristine area to the north of the Kowai River mouth, part of a sensitive area protected by the Hurunui District Council bylaw and an area on the southern side of the Kowai River lagoon. This will provide biodiversity restoration and protection from sea erosion with the use of species such as cookianum flax. Both areas are classified as having high natural values and are homes to native bird species.

Plantings will link with the other work done in this area and with that at Tūhaitara Coastal Park Trust, south of the Ashley River.

Whakatipu Reforestation Trust is celebrating its tenth anniversary of restoration work in the region with a further 9,000 native trees planned for planting around their Kelvin Heights/Jardine Park site in 2024. We provided 940 trees to the restoration work in 2022, and will continue to support this project with another 2,000 trees this year.

The area is already undergoing a significant transformation thanks to the Trust’s sustained efforts over the last decade, with residents near maturing sites witnessing increased numbers of tūī, tauhou, korimako, kererū and kōtare.

The trust will bring together working group volunteers and corporate volunteers to prepare the planting site, plant, and maintain the site for a minimum of three to five years. The Jardine Park project is also highly visible to the local community and like all the group’s planting sites, is adjacent to Queenstown’s much-loved cycle and walking trails. The Trust looks forward to visitors on the Jack’s Point track one day looking across to mature, native forest thanks to this year’s plantings.

Deforestation has occurred across New Zealand but has been particularly profound in the Matamata-Piako Region where less than 2% of original lowland forest remains. This region is nationally important as all the major rivers drain into the Hauraki Gulf, which is home to over one million people along its shores and on its islands.

This project aims to restore lowland totara forest alongside the Waitakaruru river surrounding Morrinsville and gradually extend restoration efforts along the whole riverwalk pathway. This project will help restore a regionally uncommon forest type, providing habitat for threatened plant and animal species including swamp maire and pekapeka, while increasing shade cover to reduce urban heat and cool river temperatures for native fish.

This project will also connect to other restoration efforts in the wider region including the Topehaehae, Piako and Waitoa River restoration projects. Overall, this restoration project will be an ecological and recreation showcase for the town and engage the wider public in restoration.

The Bluff Hill/Motupōhue Environment Trust (BHMET), was established in 2008, and is dedicated to the restoration and protection of the natural environment on and around Motupōhue. Motupōhue is a site of significance and its forest was once majestic, alive with centuries-old podocarps and a huge population of native birds. Bluff Hill Motupōhue Environment Trust, in partnership with Te Tapu o Tāne and Project Crimson aims to restore that life to Motupōhue through the planting of 50,000 native trees.

The group has been instrumental in returning the native tree pūnui/būnawe to Motupōhue which had been lost in the area due to introduced pests. With the successful reduction in pest animals, the birds have thrived in the area. A walk in the forest is now accompanied by the sounds and sights of bellbird/korimako, fernbird/mātātā, red-crowned parakeet/kākāriki, tūī/koko, and shining cuckoo/pīpīwharauroa, to name a few.

This restoration project allows visitors and future generations to enjoy the uniqueness of Motupōhue as a thriving ecosystem, abundant with native plants and animals.

The Waitārere Rise Reserve is a roughly 35-hectare section of land that comprises of underdeveloped and relatively unmaintained grassland and pine forest, with stands of native trees and flax. The land includes a number of natural and constructed ponds and wetlands that are utilised by numerous waterfowl including New Zealand dabchick and wetland associated species including Australasian bittern, both of which are classed as ‘Threatened’ due to habitat decline.

Some native plantings began more than 5 years ago in selected areas, with some established stands of mānuka, kānuka, ngaio, cabbage trees and flax. These large areas of reserve within the development provide the opportunity to create lowland coastal native forest, an extremely under-represented habitat in the Manawatū, and much of New Zealand.

The area is also used by the residents to enhance community wellbeing, and for recreation with a number of paths cut and maintained as walkways by volunteers.

Mana Tāhuna Charitable Trust is working on a large-scale restoration project in the Lake Hayes catchment to clean the water quality of the tributaries and lake, improve the biodiversity of the area, and introduce native habitat.

This project looks to achieve this goal by planting tens of thousands of native riparian plants and trees along the rivers and in wetlands to stabilise the bank, allowing natural slowing of the river, and retention of sediment and phosphorous E.coli, reducing that which reaches the lake to create a natural habitat for native birds and insects that will reinstate the ecosystem that once stood there.

Plantings straddle Queenstown’s iconic Lake Hayes track, which hosts tens of thousands of walkers and cyclists a year, including the Queenstown Marathon.

The Summit Road Society was established in 1948 to further the vision of Harry Ell to preserve and protect the Port Hills. This planting project is focused in Avoca Valley, where over 52,000 trees and other plants have already been planted. By the end of 2024, the Trust is on track to have planted two thirds of the entire catchment in native bush.

The valley is adjacent to Rāpaki Track with thousands of visitors each year and has been covenanted with the QEII National Trust and is protected in perpetuity. This project will reduce sedimentation and erosion, enhance biodiversity, improve resilience to extreme weather events, restore habitat for our native species, support mahinga kai values, provide recreational benefits for the community, enhance community wellbeing and engagement, and support carbon sequestration.

The Marlborough Kaikōura Trail Trust was set up in 2018 to develop and operate the Whale Trail.
The Whale Trail is a walking and cycling trail between Picton and Kaikōura. The vision is to create a first-rate tourism asset for Aotearoa that makes Marlborough and Kaikōura better places to live and work. The trail will deliver significant economic, cultural, wellbeing and environmental benefits. As architects of a new ‘second generation trail’ the Trust aims to create an incredible user experience that tells the story of our communities and local iwi. They are also taking a key leadership role in completing the geographic jigsaw puzzle of a true national cycling network.

Te Tapu o Tāne and Lake Dunstan Charitable Trust plan to plant 100,000 trees into the Lake Dunstan shoreline. The ‘Bridge to Bridge’ biodiversity restoration project is focused on restoring native species and improving recreational access/use from Lowburn Bridge to Deadman’s Bridge on Lake Dunstan.

Since the lake was created 30 years ago, the shoreline of Lake Dunstan has seen much biodiversity loss, soil degradation, damage from pests, decline in recreation use and aquatic weed infestation. Local community groups are working together to manage pest and invasive weed species and reintroducing native fauna and flora that once thrived, allowing the area to be utilised to its fullest potential and improving the wellbeing of the community and visitors that travel to the region.

In 2022, we provided 200 trees to the Pātea River Walkway Restoration, and continued to support this project with another 660 trees in 2023. The Pātea Planting Trust was convened to plant an area that had been cleared of pines after a 2012 windstorm in the area. This land surrounds the Pātea Historic Walkway, which follows the western bank of the river from the town to the beach, passing through areas dominated by shrub species, pine forest and grassland.

This replanting project is unique because the pathway allows free public access to the South Taranaki coast, an area where substantial native vegetation is extremely rare i.e. the lower reaches of the Pātea River. Furthermore, given the rarity of native bush in such areas it will provide a fantastic example of coastal forest and dune communities to the broader New Zealand public.