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Making progress on environmental projects COVID-19’s effects continue to be felt across the region, but critical work on environment projects is still pushing ahead. Rodney Local Board’s 2021-22 Infrastructure and Environmental Services work programme has been hit but behind the scenes efforts means progress has still been made. Board chair Phelan Pirrie says that’s a tribute to Auckland Council staff continuing to find ways to progress projects. “As a board we have nine environmental projects on the go, including two carried into this financial year, largely because of the pandemic. “We want to keep striving to secure the benefits we are aiming to achieve because we know few areas are as critical to the region as the environment.” The board received updates at an online workshop earlier this year, with the next steps outlined to the end of September, but since then COVID-19 has thrown up further hurdles. The first of the projects revolves around the board’s pest-free management plans. Pirrie says an ecological “roadmap” is being developed to map conservation work, and to identify priorities and gaps. “A Community Restoration Strategy is being produced by a steering group with outstanding input from Restore Rodney East. It should tell us how best the community can work together.” With feedback being sought from the wider community, a final draft should be with the board in November, with a hui for the steering group to present it to the community to take place when alert levels allow. Connected to that work is the appointment of a Restore Rodney East facilitator, with that search underway. Pests are also an issue around Coatesville, where animal control tools are being provided to support landowners establishing trapping networks to create a defence line along two kilometres of the Riverhead Forest boundary. “Pest Free Coatesville has already established the line around the forest, and is continuing to support landowners,” Pirrie says. “The value of the work being done by volunteers can’t be over-stated, and you can see that in the fact that more than 500 pest animals have already been caught.” In Kaipara, community-led predator-free initiatives are supporting landowners to undertake pest control in native bush in collaboration with council and iwi. Those efforts have seen staff working with conservation groups to identify opportunities in the west of Rodney, with two part-time contractors appointed to fill the coordinator role, both starting at the end of September. The size of the board area means Rodney faces issues across a wide front and that includes control efforts from Te Arai to Pākiri North, where a Shorebirds Trust co-ordinator has been appointed. “Funding was only allocated in August and landowner permissions to monitor lines have already been obtained, and more owners will be supported across the rest of the financial year,” Pirrie says. The trust’s co-ordinator has also launched a new website at www. conservationcoast.org Meanwhile the forestry ambassador programme, designed to improve water quality, has been finalised, the ambassador to work with landowners and forestry representatives to ensure best practice erosion and sediment controls are in place. That work has been delayed by the pandemic making face-to-face meetings impractical, but work will gear up when conditions allow. And the Rodney Healthy Harbours Riparian Restoration Fund, providing landowners with financial help to protect and restore riparian margins along Rodney waterways through planting and stock exclusion, is open for applications throughout November. Successful applicants will be announced in January. At Helensville the construction and demolition waste minimisation programme supports the community recycling centre providing waste separation bins to building sites, and a collection service. “That work will allow builders and developers to achieve waste diversion from construction and demolition projects,” Pirrie says. Another COVID-19 hit project, a contract is nearing finalisation and the centre is working on a pilot, a site visit planned for August rescheduled with the board to a time when alert levels allow. The last of the projects is Mahurangi College’s outdoor classroom, an initiative planned to support the school establishing a living classroom on two council reserves on the banks of the Mahurangi River. “It will see council staff and the community working with Pest Free Warkworth to trap pest animals, remove pest plants, monitor water quality and bird life, and undertake planting,” Pirrie says. A contract has been finalised and the programme will initially engage four new schools, to participate in conservation education and local action projects. “It’s a bold and far-reaching workload that would be impossible without the astonishing goodwill and efforts of the volunteers involved.”
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| Mahurangimatters | November 8, 2021
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