Society reserve featured in museum display

Forest and Bird, Issue 292, 1 May 1999, Page 45

Society reserve featured in museum display

John Staniland,

Waitakere Branch.

e Society’s second largest reserve features prominently in a new display at Auckland War Memorial Museum. The environment of the 101hectare Matuku Reserve, in the Waitakere Valley near Auckland, is represented in a panorama illustrating the wetland ecosystem. The display containing typical plants and creatures of the Te Henga wetland is backed by a huge colour photograph of Matuku Reserve, extending from open ponds in the foreground through reed beds, to an alluvial fan with cabbage trees, right up to forested ridges on the skyline.

Lurking in the reeds are Australasian bittern (matuku), fernbird, pukeko and dragonfly, while an underwater section shows a black shag capturing a small eel. Either side of this display are freshwater tanks, one containing live small invertebrates, and the other live inanga and kokopu, which inhabit the Waitakere River and its tributaries. The Matuku Reserve is made up of several adjacent blocks acquired since 1979 and protects the forested hillside above the best remaining wetland environment in the Auckland region. It began with 45 hectares of forest purchased jointly

by Auckland branches and the Society nationally. Further land was acquired by purchase or exchange over the years. Both the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust and most recently the Forest Heritage Fund have assisted expansion. The two eastern blocks adjoin a Rodney District Council esplanade reserve along the Waitakere River which is managed informally as part of the

reserve. —