A new reserve for Forest and Bird

Forest and Bird, Issue 280, 1 May 1996, Page 13

A new reserve for Forest and Bird

FOREST AND BIRD has recently become the owner of a new reserve — on Waiheke Island. The 17.5 hectares of AtawhaiWhenua extend over a kilometre from near Oneroa village to above Matiatia Bay. Its northfacing slopes and gullies were stripped of native forest long ago and became badly eroded. The area was covenanted following subdivision of the parent block and the owners, Nick and Nettie Johnstone, offered it to Forest and Bird in 1993. Revegetation by members of the Hauraki Islands branch began that year. Transfer of title has only recently been finalised. Locally grown trees have been donated by the city council and private nurseries. The branch mostly raises its own plants in a series of small on-site nurseries in or near the many gorse patches. Plantings approximate the island’s mixed coastal broadleaf and podocarp community. Pohutukawa and hardy regrowth species will feature prominently on the

more exposed sites; future canopy trees are being established on more favoured sheltered sites. Planting, watering (Waiheke’s droughts can be severe), trackmaking and weed control are being done by volunteers — society members and supporters, school groups including the local KCC and, occasionally, community service workers and Conservation Corps groups. The ranger in charge is a full-time volunteer and he will be assisted by a part-time worker — paid by the donors — for two years.