Tuesday, January 9, 2018
TE Upokorehe’s dream of establishing a kiwi project in the Waiotahe Valley is one step closer after the group received $10,000 funding from the Department of Conservation.
The project was the brainchild of Te Upokorehe kaumatua Denis Ransfield but, over the years, his attention had been diverted by other matters including issues around the group’s treaty settlements. So he passed it on to a group of young people from Te Upokorehe.
Group member Aroha Wikotu said kiwi had been removed from the valley during the planting and harvesting of plantation forests and taken to other areas where the birds would be protected.
In the early days the group worked with Whakatane Kiwi Project and Bridget Palmer, who taught them some of the basics of taking care of kiwi.
And then they went to a wananga, or conference, at Waikaremoana and met up with Morgan Cox from Kiwis for Kiwi and other iwi groups that had developed preservation projects.
Ms Wikotu said it was inspiring hearing about their experiences and gave them the drive to develop a kiwi project in the Te Upokorehe area.
After that, they identified the Waiotahe Scenic Reserve as an ideal place for a kiwi project. Ms Wikotu said the 370 hectares was a long piece of land, which was ideal for a kiwi project.
“The reserve already had kiwi in there and it wasn’t too big.”
She said the next step was to set up a trust to manage the project, which took a few years. However, Ms Wikotu said receiving confirmation that the group’s funding application to DoC had been successful was just what they needed.
“It is the kick-start we need. We want to use it to return the reserve to its natural beauty. The funding will be mainly used for the pest control.”
Ms Wikotu said they would be supported by DoC, other kiwi projects and neighbours including St Cuthbert’s, who owned a section of land near the reserve.
She said St Cuthbert’s had also offered to help build boxes that would contain the traps.
“The first year is going to be mostly monitoring and we won’t know the full extent of the pests until we are in there and doing it.”