Otamatea HarbourCare Society (Inc)

For the price of a cup of coffee we can grow and plant about three trees in waterways or around our special part of our special harbour.

Northland

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The Kaipara Harbour, the largest harbour in the southern hemisphere, is a national treasure however the quality of its water and marine life are being damaged by run-off from the surrounding countryside. The Otamatea HarbourCare Society is committed to reversing this by supporting landowners who are fencing and planting riparian and eroded areas.

As well as improving the quality of the water and boosting numbers of fish and shellfish, fencing and planting can result in enhanced diversity of plant, bird and insect life on the land. The extra fencing can also improve stock and pasture management and productivity.

Our slogan is: "A healthy harbour alongside productive land".

More about us

Otamatea HarbourCare is an incorporated society supported by people with a variety of backgrounds but having a common interest in improving the health of the Kaipara Harbour. Its such a huge harbour, so we focus our attention on just our part of it, the area surrounding Maungaturoto and Paparoa. We are happy to share our experiences with others further around the harbour too.

We are now entering our fourth planting season. Last year saw us get more than 16,000 trees in the ground, and this year we are aiming for 25,000.

Use of funds

Grants, donations and contributions from farmers themselves all help to get more done for less cost. We rely on volunteers to run our nursery, and help out on community planting days too.

Other page links

on Facebook

July Update 1 August 2017

Latest highlights:

Paparoa School Planting Day

Other Planting Activity

Third Community Planting Day coming up - 16th August

Givealittle page reminder

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Paparoa School Planting Day

We chickened out of the day originally set down for this, before the school holidays because, a couple of days out the weather looked like it was going to be rubbish. In fact it was fine. Leading into the back-up date, the 27th July, the forecast was just as bad, but we decided to go ahead anyway. As it turned out, the weather could not have been much better, and the digging conditions were remarkably good considering how much rain we’ve been having.

This event had been kicked off with 500 trees courtesy of the NRC’s Enviroschools programme. It took the combined team of NRC people, parents, grandparents, school staff and of course the enthusiastic pupils themselves not much more than an hour to get all those trees planted, followed by a yummy morning tea. And then, inevitably it rained in the afternoon.

Other Planting Activity

Since the last Update the Reconnecting Northland-funded planting gang have completed their 10,000 tree assignment on seven different properties in our area, Fonterra staff from the Maungaturoto site planted up a small gully at Ash and Karen Cullen’s place (just in time to beat the rain), and the Otamatea High School’s Primary Industry class came out to plant about 400 trees at a Marohemo property. Their hosts Robert and Ann were happy to show them around their chilli-growing operation. Of course someone had to try eating a whole chilli raw. The results were predictable, but at least this was after the planting had been completed! You can see some photos of these activities on our Facebook page – see the link below.

Third Community Planting Day coming up - 16th August

Next month we’ll be heading out to Batley to help our hosts Rex and Rae Roadley to add to the plantings they have carried out in previous years. We had a couple of very successful days out there last year, and it’s bound to be a great day again this time round. We’ll be joined by some folk from the Spark Foundation too. It will be interesting to see how many people can make it to a week-day working bee. Rex and Rae are great hosts, happy to share the history of the farm and the homestead with you, along with some memorable home cooking! Of course, there will be the chance to meet one of our regular Nursery volunteers, Rex’s mum Zoe – one of the more active 90-year-olds I know.

More details about this event closer the time.

In the meantime, you might like to read this article which Rae wrote for the Northern Advocate about the Reconnecting Northland planting gang coming to their lease block last month: http://www.raeroadley.co.nz/2017/07/11/rooting-for-the-kaipara-harbour/

Givealittle page reminder

Great news! Someone put some money in! Thank you to whoever that was. Check it out at https://givealittle.co.nz/org/otamateaharbourcare

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