A walk on the wet side

Forest and Bird, Issue 265, 1 August 1992, Page 5

A walk on the wet side

Elaine Fisher

UNDER the boardwalk in the heart of Tauranga city is a protected wetland which has recently become accessible to the city’s residents. Snaking along the edges of the Waikareao estuary, the 2.8-km boardwalk was completed in April. It joins up with a conventional walking track along the harbour foreshore. The idea to take the walk beyond dry land, across valuable saltmarsh and mangrove wetlands — habitat for birds and marine life — was an ambitious one. And the means of its construction were imaginative too. Tauranga District access training manager Don Stewart said the boardwalk was constructed by young job experience workers employed under Taskforce Green. "Protection of the fragile wetland environment had to be considered at all times," he said. "It is a credit to those involved in the

construction that only minimal disturbance was created to the area’s natural ecology." Access to the construction sites was not always easy and at

one stage a helicopter was used to bring timber to the workers. The project has been the result of co-operation between the local Maori people from

the Hurea marae, a number of government departments and the Tauranga District Council.