Replant a West Auckland floodplain that flooded 40 homes

A national bank has kindly offered us 100 volunteers to plant trees in our floodplain restoration project along Kaurimu Stream in Oratia. BUT ONLY if we have seedlings to plant - and we’ve already run out of seedlings! They want to plant mid-September, which means we need to source seedlings ASAP. We need to quickly raise $3,500 to get enough seedlings for them to plant. A local nursery has offered us a community discount for $1.50 per Kanuka, Manuka, Cabbage Tree, or Karamu seedling. (They wanted to gift them to us but lost a lot of business during the Auckland Anniversary floods.)

These plants will:

* help minimise future flooding and slips,

* restore habitat for at risk fresh water mussels (the planting site has one of the largest populations in Auckland a council ecologist had seen),

* restore habitat for Aotearoa's only fresh water crab (the site is part of a 'notable' population of these rare crabs),

* provide a native tree corridor for native birds, and

* guarantee us 100 volunteers to plant them!

The Oratia Sunnyvale Connection is a project to plant two hectares of floodplain. This planting is part of the project's first stage, which involves three schools, another corporate donor and the local community.

You can help us prepare for planting on August 26 from 9 am to 1 pm meeting at the Oratia Bowling Club. We’ll have a BBQ afterwards.