Current Projects:

Nature for Neighbourhoods 

For people whose properties have a stream, native bush, and/or back onto a reserve that needs (ecological) help.

 Click here to read more about the project once known as the Backyard Biodiversity Project

Increasing the Biodiversity in our own backyard

Kereru Awhina Website Project

In late August 2004 Warehouse Stationery together with Kaipatiki Project announced their support of the Kereru Awhina Project. The Project aims to highlight the plight facing New Zealand’s endemic pigeon and promoting conservation methodologies to reverse this plight. The website provides an essential communication tool between groups, societies, researchers and individuals on the present position of kereru and what they can do to improve the situation.

To find out more about how you can help kereru please visit our website http://www.kereru.org.nz

Streamside Planting at Witheford Reserve

We have a contract with Infrastructure Auckland to plant 7 sites along the stream edge (riparian zone) of the Witheford Reserve. In addition, the Sustainable Management Fund are also supporting a streamside planting and education project in the reserve.

Streamside planting is key for maintaining and improving the integrity of a stream system - which in Auckland helps in the management of our stormwater. Why is stormwater a problem?

This planting work is achieved by our lovely volunteers (is this you?) in our regular monthly working bees. We can also arrange volunteer days for your group or business - get your hands dirty outside for something different! All training, materials, fun provided. Call or email the Restoration Co-ordinator to register your interest .

Planting site locations for Infrastructure Auckland project are here.

  
Volunteers working hard on Arbor Day 2003

Kereru Awhina Project

Since March of 2003, the Kaipatiki Project, in association with WWF-NZ, has been running a project aimed at helping the struggling North Shore populations of kereru, the New Zealand pigeon. The key aims of this project were:

• Raise community awareness of kereru decline and the crucial ecological role kereru have as a "keystone" species.

• To increase the long-term survival rate of kereru in the Kaipatiki catchment by reducing animal pests and planting key native fruiting species to increase year-round food supply.

The kereru is very important to our native habitats, as it is the only endemic bird capable of digesting and distributing the large seeds of the puriri tree among others. However, the kereru faces serious challenges (in urban areas especially) from mammalian predators, loss of habitat and lack of year-round food supplies. Studies and observations have shown that urban kereru are underweight and in poor health. We had to do something to help the poor hungry kereru who was a very unhappy Shore resident indeed!

 Kaipatiki had to figure out ways of helping this beautiful bird, and this is what a dedicated team of staff and more than sixty volunteers did.

• Surveys to determine the gaps in the food supply over the year, with more than 850 plants set to be planted to fill the gaps that were identified over 2004-05.

• Did ’slow walk transect’ counts of the numbers of kereru in the reserve

• Propagated 680 key food seedlings to improve supply through the year

• Trapped rats in the reserve to reduce predation and competition

• Raising awareness of the importance of kereru to schools and the wider community through the education of more than 650 people.

• Donated 1122 key food plants to 28 schools, residents and wider community

• An educational pamphlet on the kereru was produced for local residents and schools, articles were written in the Kaipatiki quarterly newsletter and a media release sent to local print media.

• Educated public on benefits of trapping for pest free properties with 22 residents hiring pest traps

• The current trap rate for rodents is 2%, with no possums caught in the last 2 years

Our goal is to significantly increase the numbers and vitality of kereru populations in the Kaipatiki catchment, through habitat restoration and ongoing community education. Enriching the food supply will support the fragile ecology of the kereru, thereby having a positive impact upon the entire ecosystem.

  
Kereru released by Sylvia Durrant (The Bird Lady)