Te Mamaku Native Corridor Planting Project needs your help to buy more trees

A 10km long green corridor along SH60 between Tasman Village and Mapua, the so-called "Te Mamaku Drive", formerly the Ruby Bypass; that's the ambitious project of some local Tasman folk.

A stretch of unused, mostly public land on the eastern side of SH60 is visibly overgrown by gorse, broom, wattles and wilding pine trees.

The "Te Mamaku Native Corridor Project", a sub-committee of TACA (Tasman Area Community Association), wants to connect the Waimea Estuary and Moutere Inlet with mainly native bush and trees. This would beautify the area alongside the Coastal Highway, reduce the fire risk and provide a corridor for birds to move between the estuaries and nearby wetlands.

A plan has been drawn up for the whole length of the corridor, with identified priority blocks to start with and to seek appropriate funding. This is a long term project to run over years, if not several decades!

What started more than a year ago with this simple idea has now led to the first planting done on 500 metres at the start of the project at the Tasman end. Thanks to the great support and funding of TET (Tasman Environmental Trust) and Restoring the Moutere, people can now envisage the direction in which the project is heading.

Anybody interested in being involved in this project can contact Michael at michamarkertnz@gmail.com to get more information or visit the website http://tinyurl.com/26tznt89