Good news for kids, kōkako and quarry

AuthorStuart Whitaker
Published date04 November 2021
Publication titleTe Puke Times
The Ōtanewainuku Kiwi Trust received $30,720 in funding, Maketū Ongatoro Wetland Society (MOWS) $85,000 and Te Whakakaha Trust $9060.

One of the goals of the finding is to meet operational costs for the next two years.

Kiwi trust trustee Hans Pendergrast says a significant kōkako translocation project is being planned and with this comes a huge amount of administration load to enable the right stakeholder engagement, consultations and permitting processes.

“This is on top of the day-to-day operations for the trust, which is all volunteer-led. So, this funding allows for a small level of paid resourcing to ensure we are efficient in this process and do not overburden our current volunteers.

“The project is likely to take several years before we bring new birds into the forest, so having the assurance of two-year funding to help the process is very welcome support.”

Janie Stevenson, who oversees MOWS’ education programme, says some of the money will go towards the programme.

”It will enable some other schools from our core contract with Western Bay of Plenty District Council to be involved in our education programme,” she says.

”It adds to our ability to be able to take on extra schools and tops up our education funding so we can provide more for our current schools which is fantastic.”

Janie says there are changes to the programme about to be put in place.

”So, we can have some catchment based activities so that we can expand our current education programme and be providing some new ecosystem learning for our schools and some new environments for them to explore.”

Te Whakakaha Trust works to restore the natural vegetation and reduce pests in a former quarry site, Otawa Sanctuary, off No 3 Rd.

The land is administered by the Department of Conservation and is the site where a population of endangered Hochstetters frogs was discovered by a Te Puke Forest & Bird field trip in 1992.

Its grant will be used to meet operations costs over the next two years and to buy equipment.

An application for funding for these and five other groups was approved...

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