Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is putting its weight behind an environmental project aimed at increasing the health of a rural east Auckland waterway.
The organisation recently teamed up with pupils from nearby Brookby School and a group of New Zealand Olympians to plant more than 1000 trees along the banks of the Papakura Stream in Whitford.
Their hard work was part of the Olympic Day initiative and was carried out to support the Papakura Stream Restoration Project.
Conservation Volunteers NZ’s Siobhan O’Grady says: “We’ve been working on this since 2021 and since then we’ve planted about 130,000 native plants across the catchment.
“The stream is 63km long. It starts in Whitford and runs the whole way across Auckland and into the Manukau Harbour.
“Our long-term aim is to plant the tributaries, wetlands, stream banks and hillsides. Anything that has water running into the stream.
“We’re protecting the stream, increasing tree cover in the catchment, and growing a greenbelt across Auckland.”
O’Grady says Conservation Volunteers NZ has partnered on the project with the Papakura, Manurewa and Franklin Local Boards and 12 private landowners to plant trees on public and private land, “so it’s quite a collaborative effort”.
“The trees we’ve planted to date have all been planted by volunteers. We’ve had thousands of people out to help on the project.
“On top of the tree-planting we’ve also been doing litter clean-ups.
“We’ve got about three tonnes of rubbish out of the catchment and large-scale weeds removal as well.”
Among the people on hand to help with the recent tree planting in Whitford was New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive officer and secretary general Nicki Nicol.
She says the Brookby School pupils involved were put into teams for a tree-planting competition and were dressed in shirts matching the colours of the Olympic rings.
“They had a presentation from Dylan Schmidt, a New Zealand an Olympics trampoline bronze medallist.
“He talked about the values of the Olympics, which are friendship, excellence, and respect.
“A lot of the focus when we go into schools is talking about the values of the Olympics and that’s a big part of our annual programme as well.”
She says the environmental project in Whitford fits with sustainability being an important aspect of the Olympics.
“What we find is our Olympians are great ambassadors for sustainability.
“It’s lovely that we can combine some of that, but we also just want to be connected with our community.”
