Lower Hutt THE STORY OF AN URBAN BRANCH

Forest and Bird, Volume 18, Issue 2, 1 May 1987, Page 24

Lower Hutt THE STORY OF AN URBAN BRANCH

by

Maureen Burgess,

Chairperson,

Lower Hutt Branch

hen one looks back into the history of our National Society, one discovers that the Lower Hutt Branch is not very old. In the middle of 1975, two new sections were formed in the Wellington area: Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. Although Upper Hutt gained Branch status the next year, it was not until November 1977 that Lower Hutt became a Branch of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. We are an urban Branch, with membership covering the valley floor (the city of Lower Hutt and the borough of Petone), the large valley suburb of Stokes Valley, the suburbs of the western hills, the Eastbourne coast, and the city ‘over the hill’ — Wainuiomata. Publicity about the aims and the work of the Society, coupled with displays highlighting the activities of our Branch appear to have worked well for us in our desire to increase membership. In the past 11 years our membership has increased from the initial 365 members to almost 3000. Without any overall design the composition of the Lower Hutt Branch Committee has been spread geographically and in relation to age. Women have always played important roles, but it was not until 1985 that the Branch elected its first female chairperson. The number of Committee members is usually 16, but we place great emphasis on the work of the sub-committees. We try to include some non-Committee members on our sub-Committees so that we can introduce new people to our activities. Active branch Our location can only partly serve to explain why Lower Hutt Branch is so active in trips, tree-planting, submission writing, and participating in local issues. To be an active Branch, you need active members, and we have always had a strong nucleus ready to both initiate new projects and to provide continued support for existing ones. Our location is really a bonus — we are surrounded by potential trips such as coastal walks, bush walks, high altitude trips, and trips to nearby islands. The decision by the Wellington area branches in 1979 to put out a combined programme every six months, means that each of our members can choose from about 300 trips each year. We try to get our own trips and monthly meetings well advertised by means of a leaflet entitled ‘What's on this month" which we distribute to all local libraries and the news media. Our trips are not exclusively for members of Forest and Bird and we find that a lot of people who come on a trip with us then go on to join the Society. To help people decide whether the trip is suitable for them, each trip is classified by the Programme subCommittee as: Easy, Family, Medium, Strenuous or Adventure. The essence of Lower Hutt Branch is its

openness to ideas. If anybody wants to do something, they are encouraged to do it. This has led to our involvement in many exciting campaigns, some of the most recent being public education by Stan Butcher about the threat of Old Man's Beard (Clematis vitalba), protection for pingao grass on the beaches at Petone and Eastbourne, the fight to prevent a detention dam from being constructed in bush at the Korokoro forks, and the protection of the Gollan’s Valley wetlands from the proposed sewage treatment plant. Each of our Branch Chairpersons has introduced a new facet to our activities. Dave Carrad’s aim was to involve people who would otherwise be unable to participate. He initiated our Veterans and Disabled Per-

sons Picnic which has now become an annual event at the Kaitoke Waterworks Reserve. The highlight for many of them is the billy-tea, and even those in wheelchairs are able to experience the pleasures of being in the bush. Because of David's involvement with Birthright, we also invite some of the local solo parent families on our trips. Organised opposition Through the example of Russell Bell, our Branch has become very vocal in local and national issues. We have had many struggles in our area with developers wanting to do things that we opposed, but it was not until Russell wrote our Branch’s submission

against Fletcher Development's proposal to subdivide and sell off the top part of Stokes Valley in 1981, that we really learned about organised opposition. This struggle involved a hearing at which Russell spoke, and the result was that the proposal did not go ahead and that Hutt County Council bought most of the land for reserve purposes. We no longer stand back, but put in submissions or comments about all schemes or management plans where we think it is important for us to have input. Late last year our Conservation sub-Committee was almost swamped beneath a deluge of management plans for local reserves which all came up for review. When the time has seemed right, we have organised public meetings. Of these, the evening with Sir Edmond Hillary in 1980 and the evening entitled ‘"‘Which political

party will save the forests?" prior to the 1984 General Election were so well supported that it was ‘standing room only’. Our support of Conservation Week has always been strong, but it will be difficult to reach the standard set in 1983 when we had a week-long display in a hall in central Lower Hutt. Anyone who was there will remember the beautiful tie-dyed silk waterfall which was the centre of the display for ‘‘Water Means Life’. Many hours of our time have been spent on issues concerning the Hutt River estuary and the Petone foreshore. For more than two years a small group of members under Stan Butcher's leadership did regular bird surveys at the estuary and the rivermouth in order to justify our claim that the mudflat there should be given protection as a wildlife reserve. At long last the Wellington Harbour has acknowledged the wildlife values of the estuary, which has the only mudflat in Wellington Harbour. Our next aim is to get the Harbour Board's reclamation designation for the mudflat lifted. Proposals for boat launching ramps on the foreshore and the management of the East Petone Foreshore Reserve are problems that we tackle month after month, and we will be working on these well into the 1980s. . . My particular interests have been in forming close liaison with the Parks and Reserves Departments of our local Councils, and with the local news media. This has meant a good supply of plants for local projects. We are invited to have input into local reserve proposals, and local papers give our efforts and opinions good coverage. We now tend to initiate projects, rather than wait to respond to initiatives from others. This has proved to be successful and in

the case of our ‘Bushfires’ leaflet distributed last November, led to the Lower Hutt City Council's Head of Parks and Reserves offer to sponsor the printing costs. The pamphlet encourages people to safeguard gorse as a nursery plant rather than burn it. An article cannot really do justice to all the things that Lower Hutt Branch has been involved with in the last eleven years. Perhaps I will simply extend a warm welcome to you to call on us when you are in Wellington and share in some of our activities. Some of you will have this opportunity when you come to our Summer Camp-out in January 1988. . . see you there. ¥