Environment Waikato supports urban paddock to forest project

Environment Waikato will grant a total of $120,000 to help create a living museum at the Lake Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park (Horseshoe Lake) in Hamilton.

The council confirmed the grant from the Environmental Initiatives Fund (EIF) today, awarding $40,000 for this financial year, and $40,000 a year for the next two years, to accelerate the restoration of the area with the planting of approximately 14,000 native plants each year.

Lake Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park is a ground-breaking urban ecological reconstruction project closely linked to Environment Waikato’s Hamilton Halo project to bring the tui back to the city.

Over 20 to 50 years, the project aims to recreate the natural vegetation and bring back native birds and insects that used to be common in the area that includes the wetlands of the lake and some 60 hectares of land owned by Hamilton City Council. More than 100,000 plants covering approximately 10 hectares have been planted so far.

The additional planting funded by Environment Waikato will help establish the forest canopy more quickly, reducing weed problems and making the area more attractive to native birds such as tui, bellbird and kereru.

Environment Waikato deputy chairman John Fisher said the project was a good fit for the EIF and provided a great learning experience that could be shared with the whole region, and not just Hamilton. He said that farmers might be interested in how to turn paddocks into forests over time to take advantage of carbon credits.

“While the EIF grant is generally not used for financial assistance covering more than one year, we felt it was reasonable to commit to three years of funding for a project of this scale”, he said.

The project has strong partnerships with Hamilton City Council, the University of Waikato, Waikato Institute of Technology, Tui 2000 and Nga Mana Toopu O Kirikiriroa.

Hamilton City Council has been the primary operational funder of Lake Waiwhakareke, with $110,000 spent in 2009 and commitment through the city’s 2009-2019 Long Term Plan to provide further funding, beginning with $20,000 per year for the first five years.

Prof. Bruce Clarkson, head of CBER and a Lake Waiwhakareke Advisory Group member, said the EIF grant would advance the goal of having 10 per cent native vegetation cover in Hamilton city.

“The gully system already offers about eight per cent,of the Hamilton city area and with Waiwhakareke we could get very close to that ultimate goal.”

Community volunteer plantings have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of labour. The Friends of Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park group meets on the last Saturday of every month from 9am to 12 noon.