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Events - WellingtonA Rocha in Wellington: After 2 years working on a mistletoe reintroduction project on the Kapiti Coast, since mid-2011 we have formed 3 sub-groups, focusing efforts on the Kapiti Coast, Wellington City, and Hutt Valley. Coast The Coast group held a planning meeting on 30 September 2011 to discuss a long-term plans and are now busy developing the Kotukutuku Project which aims to introduce a range of threatened native species to two bush blocks near Paraparaumu including a species of mistletoe (underway) and lizards (project plan being developed). Funding will be applied for to do an initial survey of lizards and other selected species, and to develop a management plan for a predator-proof enclosure, and then further funding sought to carry out the plan. City The City group are considering which projects they may focus on in the future. After input and discussion from everyone, we have decided that we would commit to continuing the partnership with the Friends of Owhiro Stream group and attend their monthly working bees. There are also potential future projects including: a project in the Houghton Bay area; and, the Watts peninsular in Mirimar (which used to belong to the Defence Force) is now going to be a public reserve and there might be opportunities to be involved with ecological restoration projects there when they get going in the the future. Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley group met on 15th October in Wainuiomata. Russel Bell guided us around the wetland he is working to restore, explaining the project and also discussing the opportunities for us to get involved. Upcoming and Recent EventsFor more information about upcoming events, please email us at new.zealand@arocha.org
For our combined December break-up event we had a wonderful picnic trip out to the Pencarrow Lakes on Saturday the 3rd of December 2011. The Pencarrow Lakes - Kohangapiripiri and Kohangatera - are New Zealand's last remaining relatively unmodified wetlands. Thank you to Jim and Russell for pointing out the interesting flora and fauna and telling us the history of the area. 18th December 2011 (6pm) - Kapiti group: Pot luck dinner. Past EventsNovember 2011 (8am - 11am) - Hutt Velley group: Falcon Breeding Survey at the Kaitoke Regional Park, Kaitoke Waterworks Rd. Jim O'Malley led us on a survey looking for native falcon nesting sites. They are more active in the morning so we met at the entrance to the reserve just off SH2 at 8 am. November 2011 (6pm) - Wellington cluster get-together. Social event at Blondini's Cafe, Embassy Theatre (upstairs), 10 Kent Tce, Wellington. We continued our discussion about group projects, and just hung out together! November 2011 - Friends of Owhiro stream working bee. Although only one member managed to attend the working bee, others went and had a look at the site after meeting for lunch. It was impressive to see the work they have done along the stream and the track that is being created to allow the public to use part of the site. October 2011 - Impromptu pot luck dinner! Rob Davies-Colley and Richard Storey, members of the A Rocha NZ National Team and Board respectively, visited Wellington during this week so we thought it would be a good opportunity to have an impromptu pot luck and bible study get together. July 2011 - Pot luck dinner. Kristel, the National Director of A Rocha NZ, was at this meeting and gave us an update about what's happening with A Rocha in the rest of New Zealand before we had a discussion about a proposed change in A Rocha Wellington's future direction. June 2011 - Friends of Owhiro Stream working bee. For our June event, a small band of us joined the Friends of Owhiro Stream planting day. We focused on a site that had been planted a few years back; clearing weeds around the surviving plants and planting new plants where others had died. We also planted silver tussock (Poa cita) around the road edge and Dan did a great job creating a path down to the stream.These working bees are held once a month and a contingent of our group assist here regularly. In July, friends of Owhiro Stream are having their big planting day, during which they hope to plant over a thousand plants. Here's a quote from their website: Friends of Owhiro Stream have been actively restoring the Owhiro Stream, Wellington’s only unpiped natural flowing stream, since 2004. The stream provides crucial habitat for native creatures such as long-fin and short-fin eel, red-fin bully, banded kokopu and koura, and the group are working towards encouraging the return of Koaro to the area.. www.gw.govt.nz/Friends-of-Owhiro-Stream May 2011 - Tree Planting. Thanks to the Parminters for hosting an excellent planting event and planning day. It was so great to be able to catch up with everyone again and it was lovely to see some new faces at the event too. After lunch we spent some useful time discussing the way forward for A Rocha Wellington. There was a general consensus that having our active members spread out over a large area in greater Wellington has made it a challenge to run the group in an effective and focussed way. For this reason, we are going to investigate ways to address this issue when the leadership team meets soon. We will keep you informed and welcome any suggestions or input you might have. December 2010 - Mistletoe checking... It was time to check our mistletoe seeds planted in May to see if any had sprouted! October 2010 - Greeting Card Workshop: The September 2010 - Exhibition viewing: ARTISTS AS ACTIVISTS - For the environment. An informal meeting between meetings - we plan to view this exhibition together. Levi gave us an over-view of his thoughts on an artwork of his choice in the exhibit. We then went for coffee afterwards in a cafe close by. September 2010 - Visit to Southern Landfill in Wellington. We organised a tour of the Southern landfill to learn about what happens to our household rubbish and recycling, and hopefully be encouraged to reduce our personal waste! Evelyn, one of our group members, works there as part of the Waste management education team. The tour includes the Recycling Centre (which is where items get salvaged and resold), energy generation plant, the transfer station, composting operations, household hazardous waste, and landfill. It was an interesting and educational experience! August 2010 - Pot luck dinner. Discussion topic: 'What's conservation got to do with evangelism?!' This was also an opportunity to think about how we can raise awareness of the necessity of conservation in our own individual church communities, and set some realistic goals that we could support each other in. July 2010 - Pot luck dinner. Discussion topic: Why Should Christians Care for Creation? Some answers from the past and present". This meeting went well - we had lots of yummy food provided by everyone (thanks to you all for this). It was a great opportunity to spend time getting to know each other better. Irene (one of the group members) gave a thought provoking talk on how Christians throughout the ages have connected their faith to creation and the environment they lived in. The Desert Fathers and Mothers (4th century) left the cities to live in the wilderness, seeking a closer relationship with God. St Francis of Assissi (13th Century) encouraged his followers to be like the birds, who own nothing and are yet are provided for by their Creator. St Hildegard of Bingen (10th century) wrote about how integrally we are connected to creation - "Human beings cannot live without the rest of nature, they must care for all natural things". THANK YOU IRENE for sharing this wisdom with us, I am sure all of those present were greatly enriched in their faith and connection to creation. June 2010 - Seed collection and planting. We met in Paraparaumu and proceeded to Whakarongotai Marae, Waikanae, to collect seed. We then returned to Valley Rd to plant seed on host trees. June 2010 - Pot luck dinner. Russell Burton-Bell inspired those at June's pot luck with the vision of Wildlife Corridors, talking about identifying ecological corridors in the Wellington region and his work to get these areas recognised by the Hutt City and Greater Wellington councils. Wildlife corridors are generally a series of small forested areas where birds can eat and shelter as they travel from one large forest area to the next. The existence of these corridors is essential in enabling birds to disperse plant seeds. With co-operation from land owners there could be connection between islands of bush from the Orongarongas to QEII Park on Kapiti Coast. This would allow isolated reserve areas such as Pencarrow Lakes to receive and contribute diversity to neighbouring bush areas. A Rocha Wgtn is interested in participating with Forest and Bird to promote a continuous corridor from the Wainuiomata area to Kapiti Coast. May 2010 - Mistletoe planting day. The plan for the day was 9.30am-12pm collect seeds, 12-1pm lunch, 1-5pm place mistletoe seeds on trees throughout the property. April 2010 - Planting day at Paraparaumu. The aim is to re-vegetate a hillside with NZ natives, to improve the conservation value of this land. Some Palmerston Nth A Rocha people joined us and we showed them the mistletoe project in the afternoon. March 2010 - Otari-Wiltons Bush visit with guide Dr John Dawson (a trustee of the bush, botanist and author of "Nature Guide to the New Zealand Forest"). This reserve is filled with interesting, rare NZ native plants and John is an entertaining guide! We learned lots of cool stuff about NZ native plants! Location: Wilton Rd, Wilton. The walk was around the upper part of Otari and took about 1 1/2 hours. January 2010 - Meeting. Venue: Otari Information Centre December 2009 - Native Plant Stall. Our native plant stall was a great success at Christmas Knack craft market on 6 December. It was a perfect Wellington day, with the sunlight and clear blue skies showing off our plants to their best advantage. We enjoyed the exchange with other ethically minded creative people, stall holders and customers. It was great to be part of a local event and meet residents who had a wealth of local knowledge and strong commitment to the community. We made some good sales, and had many great conversations with plant enthusiasts. However, the stall was a lot of work, for a only a medium size profit ($123.50). We concluded such work had more benefits for public relations than for fund-raising, so will consider other methods if we decide as a group to generate more income. We do now have a small fund to begin such endeavours from. November 2009 - Lynton and Anna's information extravaganza! Lynton and Anna are setting sail from NZ early in 2010 to be volunteers at A Rocha Canada and A Rocha Kenya. Many are no doubt left wondering, who is this A Rocha and what on Earth will be these two be doing for a year? To have these nagging questions answered, we cordially invited you to our information extravaganza on Saturday the 21th of November 2009. There were stories, movies and of course.... there will be waffles! November 2009 - Mistletoe outing and pot luck dinner. From 2pm, there was a walk around to see whether mistletoe is growing on seeded host trees. There was enthusiastic excitement as those who climbed trees discovered some of the Ileostylus micranthus seeds sprouting pin-head sized leaves. At 5.30pm there was a pot-luck dinner and gathering to firm up plans for next year. October 2009 - Pot luck dinner. Kristel van Houte-Howes, the National Director of A Rocha NZ, made her way down to visit us. She visited with us to get a feel for what we are up to, what our plans for the future are and to find ways the National organisation might assist us. She also shared with us what is happening on the national level and as well as with other local A Rocha groups. This evening was also a time to figure out what direction people want the group to go in and what level of commitment each person wants to give. August 2009 - Pot luck dinner. After a couple of quiet, wintery months, this was a good chance to get together again for a pot luck dinner. June 2009 - 'Planting' Day. We collected the seeds (~30) and planted them on the prepared host trees. May 2009 - Working Bee. This first working bee was a reconnaissance day to find the mistletoe seed source, identify the current host species, locate suitable hosts in the Valley Rd property and prepare the host tree (banding if necessary, setting possum traps, etc.). We had received permission to search for and take mistletoe seeds from two locations. May 2009 - Pot luck dinner and Meeting. At this meeting, we decided unanimously agreed to adopt the mistletoe reintroduction project. April 2009 - Pot luck dinner and Meeting. At this meeting we discussed potential projects for the Wellington A Rocha initiative group, focusing primarily on a Mistletoe reintroduction project. We agreed to do more research before the next meeting, including a botanical survey of the property for the presence of suitable host trees, and enquiries with DOC regarding sourcing seeds, 'planting' techniques and appropriate times for 'planting'. Feb 2009 - Kotukutuku Bush Trip. Dec 2008 - Pot luck dinner and Meeting. Nov 2008 - Pot luck dinner and Meeting. |
