The 'Ark in the Park'

Forest and Bird, Issue 311, 1 February 2004, Page 4

The 'Ark in the Park'

is helping to

organise the ‘Ark in the Park’ project.

—MARK BELLINGHAM

orest and Bird’s ‘Ark in Park’ project aims to restore the natural wonders of the Waitakere Ranges, which lie between Auckland and its wild west coast. The project involves intensive pest control over 2000 hectares of the ranges, centred on the Cascades Kauri Park, part of the extensive Waitakere Ranges Centennial Park operated by the Auckland Regional Council. The broader Waitakere Ranges are renowned as public parkland with more visitors than most of our national parks. People are attracted by the combination of the beauty of the wild rugged coastline, and lush native forest, all within less than an hour’s drive for most of the one million

plus people in metropolitan Auckland. Forest and Bird members are now undertaking predator control (of rats, stoats, cats and possums), weed control, and restoration planting in the Cascades area. It is hoped that, eventually, wildlife lost from the Waitakere Ranges can be safely brought back to its former habitats. There will be direct benefits to the wildlife that remains in the park too, and populations of species such as tui, kereru and weta should be able to increase. The first stage of the Ark in the Park will protect an area in the Cascades Park where it will be safe to reintroduce robins and whiteheads. As the predator-control area increases, there will be opportunities for

other birds, reptiles, invertebrates and plants to be returned. The beauty of this restoration project is that, unlike many others, the forest does not need to be replanted. Intensive pest control is an integral part of any such restoration plan, allowing the plants to recover from damage inflicted by possums and goats, and removing introduced predators that threaten the existence of many of the native animals. This project has not happened by accident. Many Aucklanders have toiled for the protection of the Waitakere Ranges, originally as a national park, then as water catchment areas for the growing Auckland region, and now more recently as a regional park. Compared with native forests of similar size further south, however, the Waitakere Ranges lack many forest animal species. Gone are kiwi, kokako, falcon, kaka, whitehead and long-tailed cuckoo, bellbird, robin, kakariki and short-tailed bat. Some reptiles, invertebrates and plants have also disappeared from the area. The Waitakere Ranges are now so isolated from other significant forest areas that lost species cannot recolonise these forests naturally. The issue of the ‘missing’ wildlife in the Waitakere

Ranges has taxed the minds of local conservationists for many years and in the late 1990s members of the main conservation groups in the area (the Waitakere Branch of Forest and Bird, the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society and the Friends of Arataki) met to consider ways of restoring wildlife in the ranges. After a long period of discussion, with the community and other interested parties, a suitable area was identified in the Cascades Kauri Park, part of the broader forest parklands. In November 2002, the Waitakere Branch of Forest and Bird signed a memorandum of agreement with the Auckland Regional Council so that the Ark in the Park open sanctuary could proceed. This project marks recognition by Forest and Bird in Auckland, that it has a significant role to play in leading communities in ecological restoration projects. The Society is in a unique position, with the resources both to advocate for Government policy to restore and protect New Zealand’s biodiversity, and to continue with its 80-year history of practical conservation leadership with its own restoration projects.