The Waikato Regional Council’s upper Waiomou catchment habitat enhancement project has ended, having restored 48km of waterways along the Tukutāpere, Rapurapu and Waiomou streams.
The four-year project worked with landowners to retire and plant out riparian margins along those waterways by controlling overgrown willow and poplar trees and other pest plants, and by planting out a native corridor in their place.
The council’s Hauraki catchments unit lead, Mike Houghton, said all the landowners were really generous with their setbacks, retiring larger margins than they had been asked to.
“This uptake and dedication meant we exceeded all our project targets, but by going above and beyond, we’ve been able to increase the project’s benefits.
“The wider margins can intercept more nutrients and run-off from reaching waterways. We’ve retired additional steep slopes, which helps to prevent soil erosion, and we’ve been able to create way more habitat and corridors for our native wildlife.”
The completion of the upper Waiomou habitat enhancement project was celebrated on September 13 with a group of landowners, stakeholders, contractors and staff visiting some of the restoration sites.
The project included partnership funding from the Ministry for the Environment, Fonterra and Ngā Whenua Rāhui, which was able to provide landowners with up to 80% of the costs of the restoration work completed.
The objectives of the project were:
• The removal and thinning of overgrown poplars and willows that were either choking streams or at risk of collapse.
• Stock exclusion by fencing to keep stock away from stream sides.
• Pest plant control, by combining mulching and herbicide treatment to control a range of pest plants.
• Re-vegetation of riparian margins with native plants to connect the Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park to the Waihou River.
In total, 36 environmental programme agreements with landowners enabled 49 hectares of land to be controlled for pest plants and retired, including 48km of fencing and revegetation with 225,344 native plants.
Te Hanga North Lands Trust trustee Les Kinred said that when Waikato Regional Council first asked about retiring riparian margins on Māori-owned land, “we were mighty suspicious”.
“But the information and advice they provide, and the mapping and the planning, it all proves to be very helpful,” Kinred said, with the trust retiring 3.5ha along 1.1km of stream length and putting nearly 15,000 plants into the ground.
Landowner Peter Bellamy said the project has been really worthwhile.
He retired 1.4km along both sides of the Waiomou Stream with setbacks of up to 20m. The area had a lot of large privet trees on his land, along with bindweed and Japanese honey suckle.
“I realise the maintenance of the plants is coming back to me but that seems easy compared to the work that has been done.
“And finding out about the native bat population, from an ecological assessment, that was a real buzz moment.”
Hauraki Coromandel catchments manager Emily O’Donnell said the initial driver of the project was to deal with a legacy issue relating to the planting of poplar and willows along streams banks.
“Many had reached maturity, were oversized and tipping over, exposing riverbanks and exacerbating erosion.
“None of this work would have possible without the vision and generosity of the landowners, who opened their farm gates and welcomed our staff and contractors.”
