Fourteen-year project sees bare paddocks shaped into wetland in Wairarapa
Tuesday, 23 April 2019
It's been 14 years since a group of duck lovers stood before some bare paddocks with poor pasture and little prospects near the shores of Lake Wairarapa.
Today that land is 132 hectares of thriving wetland, home to endangered bird species as well as numerous common waterfowl and waders.
After years of planting, shaping and spraying the restoration of Wairio Wetland is now a shining light of what can be done to restore health to a damaged ecology.
Driven by conservation group Ducks Unlimited New Zealand, which specialises in promoting habitats for water fowl, the wetland was established on Department of Conservation land and developed with support from the regional council.
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Ross Cottle of Ducks Unlimited said it had been a long road since they started work on the project 14 years ago, but it was gratifying to see the flourishing ecosystem they had created.
'We have a huge variety of birds down here now. There's a lot of ducks and a lot of black swans, but in recent times we've also had a lot of pied stilts and a huge number of Royal Spoonbills, which have not been seen in this area for 30 years.'
Ducks Unlimited, along with the regional council, has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in planting trees, building bund walls and on weed control.
The Lower Wairarapa Valley Development Scheme (LWVDS), operational during the 1960 and 1970s, was designed to control flooding and create more farmland but it had a devastating effect on the wetland ecology of the region.
Large areas bordering Lake Wairarapa were drained and cleared of forest and sedges and the 132ha area was reduced to boggy pasture.
Ecologists working for Victoria University and the regional council envisage the rejuvenated wetland playing a key role in cleansing nutrient-rich water which flows off surrounding farmland.
'It's a leader in this region and we have created a template of how you can build a wetland,' Cottle said.
Construction of a new diversion channel around 300 metres long this month was designed to take excess water from Matthew's Lagoon wetland to the Wairio block.
This latest piece of work was funded by Greater Wellington Regional Council.
Council engineer Adam Mattsen said the channel will advance the regional council's flood protection and biodiversity objectives of the area.
'And we recognise that it's a project that provides a lot of benefit for the restoration of the wetland.'
Ownership of the land will eventually be transferred to local iwi as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement.
Cottle expected Ducks Unlimited would be involved with continuation of the development of the area.