Railway R`op`u
Tena Koe
We are a group branched from or an offshoot from the Bell's Track working group involved in restoring our native forests as we worked on Bell's track around Awarua Street station and the reserve in Awarua Street. As coordinator for the last 20 years decided best to split it into 3 groups. Tony Cook will run Bell's Track and Matthew the reserve between 72 and 94 Awarua Street.
We have decided to call our group Railway R`op`u (te reo for group) our aim is to have the Johnsonville line a native plant corridor and people can buy day passes and be given a map showing the walks and cafes at each station.
At the moment we meet every Tuesday morning 11 am at Awarua Street Station but now need more help. Yes you can join us on Tuesdays or adopt a spot or look after a particular species of plant, The attached photos show what we have achieved in 14 years but as our area includes Cummings Park and railway embankment there is plenty to do.
An example of how you can help is we planted 12 Nikau palms and they are now getting overwhelmed by weeds so to care for them would be a real help. Once we get a canopy then that represses the weeds but this can take 4 to 6 years.
I cannot stress enough the importance of our forests in remediëring the damage we have done .
For those interested in knowing more I do a tour at Zealandia every Thursday at 11am talking about our manu (birds) and reforestation.
Nga Mihi nui.
Des Smith
Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
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