|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
- By Chris Harrowell, Eastern Times
Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is putting its weight behind an environmental project
aimed at increasing the health of a Franklin waterway.
aimed at increasing the health of a Franklin waterway.
The organisation recently teamed up with pupils from Brookby School and a group of New
Zealand Olympians to plant more than 1000 trees along the banks of the Papakura Stream.
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.
“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.”
Among the people on hand to help with the recent tree planting in Brookby 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.
The environmental project fits with sustainability being an important aspect of the Olympics.
“What we find is our Olympians are great ambassadors for sustainability,” Nicol says.
“It’s lovely that we can combine some of that, but we also just want to be connected with our community.”
