Te Hoiere Project accelerates Pelorus planting

Tuesday, 27 June 2023

Molly Verry helps with planting at Ruapaka Wetland, in the Te Hoiere/Pelorus catchment, being restored by Ngāti Kuia.

Native seedlings are being planted in wetlands and along rivers and streams in Marlborough’s Te Hoiere/Pelorus catchment.

Te Hoiere Project is supporting the planting of 13 sites totalling 7.2 hectares this autumn and winter, as part of a larger programme to improve freshwater quality and biodiversity ki uta ki tai – from the mountains to the sea.

Catchment care coordinator Aubrey Tai said landowners shared costs with the project, from buying and planting seedlings, to fencing to exclude stock.

“We help people to improve their land towards meeting national and local rules aimed at protecting the health of freshwater along with the health and well-being of people and the environment,” Tai said.

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Te Hoiere Project catchment leaders, Mark and Simone Zillwood.

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Mark and Simone Zillwood were Te Hoiere Project catchment leaders for Pelorus/Wakamarina, offering over-the-gate advice to anyone wanting help with restoring land.

Moana Smith has her hands full of seedlings to be planted.

They milked 140 cows on a 50-hectare effective farm between Canvastown and Pelorus Bridge. Since buying the property in 2008, the Zillwoods had fenced and planted the banks of a Pelorus tributary in native species.

This autumn the Zillwoods planted another 1000 native seedlings and installed tree guards, supplied through Te Hoiere Project.

“The Project is helping people who are short of time and money, enabling them to get things done more quickly,” Mark Zillwood said.

Ronga Valley farmers Glyn and Carol Jones joined in after meeting the team at the 2020 Rai Valley Show. They’d recently bought their dream farm with hill country, native bush, waterways and a 5ha pine plantation.

“We were already doing the things the project wants to see happen off our own bat and could see with project support, we could make five years’ progress in one,” Glyn Jones said.

Recycle newspaper into biodegradable plant pots.

He collected native seedlings from the farm’s native bush backdrop, where all five species of New Zealand beech trees flourished. They were grown in a shade-house, along with nursery purchases and “anything donated or pillaged”.

About 7000 kānuka, mānuka, beech, hoheria, tōtara, kahikatea and other seedlings had been planted along streams, on slopes and in awkward corners “for erosion protection, silt retention and to bring the birdlife out of the bush.” This included 600 seedlings planted this autumn by project contractor Landscape Marlborough.

Te Hoiere Project was also providing 15,000 native seedlings to Ngāti Kuia, for planting at Ruapaka Wetland, near Canvastown, by Diploma of Horticulture graduates trained by Te Pūkenga NMIT and iwi.

Fonterra, the Ministry for the Environment, and the Department of Conservation helped to pay for the restoration, and Waka Kotahi/Marlborough Roads provided a stop-go road crew as machinery ground poisoned willows into mulch for seedlings, alongside State Highway 6.

Ngāti Kuia kaitiaki mō te Hoiere Awa coordinator Shannon Huntley said timber traps had been installed in the stream that ran through the wetland. Selected root balls would be removed to improve flow, and stock fences will be built, weeds controlled, pests monitored, and a trapping programme developed. Options for improving fish passage were being explored.

Project participation required a free catchment condition survey that identified how funds would be best spent to benefit the environment, and signing a landowner agreement. Packages were tailored to each property and landowners’ ability to contribute labour, plants, or materials.

The project was a partnership between the Marlborough District Council, DOC, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau and the community. NZ Landcare Trust, Forest & Bird, Top of the South Wood Council, Fonterra, Waka Kotahi/Marlborough Roads, MfE and Ministry for Primary Industries were supporters.

Penny Wardle is a former Marlborough Express reporter who now works for Te Hoiere Project.