Despite delays caused by wet weather, we’ve made significant process on the Te Hōnonga a Iwi Restoring Rosedale Park project. Here’s a detailed report of what’s been happening.
- Discussions ongoing with ECB District Commander Girl Guides regarding forming a Restoration partnership with Guides on the Shore
- Consultation with key stakeholders from Council, Upper Harbour Local Board, Upper Waitemata Ecology Network (UWEN) leads regarding restoration progress to date and how we might improve our outcomes going forward
- Request to consult Iwi/Mana whenua re progress from a Maōri lens has been made and ongoing commitment to work in partnership, when the time is right is in place.
- Youth Pest Management Lead, Matthew Lee, booked in to attend an AC Pest Management course to develop his skills base
- Pest Management Leader, Sophie Haine delivered two monthly trap reports. No pest animals trapped to date. Sophie is continuing to refine the trap matrix on site and has secured monitoring equipment, following guidance from Dan, Tim Johnstone and Les Wootton from UWEN.
- ICB building has reported sightings of 7 cats on the restoration site. This has been corroborated by Nicky who has seen and heard them. We understand the bird population has dramatically declined with their presence. Sophie, Dan and UWEN have been notified. Cat rescue will go in to collect them.
- Aimee Donovan, Stormwater 360 and Dan Marrow, Park Ranger arranged to source worms from Orewa Council to place into the bioreactors. The first 6 bioreactors now have worms in situ.
- Aimee Donovan organised Stormwater 360 to come to site to recover almost all the inorganic rubbish on or near the site including carting 7 tires up from the stream or riparian area and the remains of a couch.
- Matt Cummings, Untangled Landscapes has continued to have a strong weekly presence at the site, attending all the community weekend working bees, delivering the conveyor kindly supplied by NZ Machinery (thank you Josiah Steiner). We needed Matt’s ingenuity at the third working bee when one of the recently filled bioreactors began to lean with the threat of tipping over with 1 tonne of mulch inside. Strops were used to stabilise the reactor and a quick response from volunteers enabled the reactor to be supported and braced back to the upright position. We have realised the plastic pallets are not fit for purpose for supporting the weight of the reactors. We have tied the other reactor that was sitting on plastic to its neighbour to mitigate risk of it being affected by the lack of strength of its base. Huge thanks to the team on the ground for all three weekend bees. A total of 90 volunteers gifted 3 hours of hard work each to shift a total of 12 tonnes of biomass into the reactors. Volunteers arrived from the ecology network, Massey University, Frisbee Golf, Kristin School, Long Bay College, North Harbour Business network, Stormwater 360 and North Harbour Hockey Association. We have been led by Kaumatua, Richard Nahi, whose work rate outstripped the fittest of the crew members! Special thanks to Sarah Wakeford and Jayne Jones from Kristin and Long Bay College for giving up time in your weekends to bring students along.
- Richard gifted us a Māori calendar and has blessed the work and the people invested in regenerating the park at each working bee with karakia at the start of the sessions as we unite.
- Untangled Landscapes has supplied the cover crop seeds for Wairau Valley Special School as they began their weekly Monday morning working bees sowing the cover crop with bioorganic compost. We were delighted to note the crop sprouting 6 days post sowing. Images of this student cohort’s mahi and an article about cover crops are available on the website and social media platforms https://www.restoringrosedalepark.org.nz/post/help-us-plant-3500-natives
- Matt will be monitoring the temperatures of the reactors to maintain optimum health for the bio-organisms and worms.
- We thank Atlas Concrete for supplying the crushed concrete for creating a platform to suit Hilton Browns specifications for the IBC’s. Thanks Matt, Svea and Tim for constructing it and Brad Clark for helping transfer the recycled water back up the hill to the permanent site that enables us to use gravity to water the feedstock in the bioreactors.
- Hilton Brown Swimming continue to be generous with their support in enabling access to the site. We have crushed concrete ready to lay on the lower carpark once the mulch work is completed. HBS have also supplied power for us to use the conveyor supplied from NZ machines weekly to reduce our workload getting the mulch up 2 m into the reactors. Thank you both for the significant investment you have made in this project.
- The Windmill team, students from ASHS Impact project group continue to design and build a windmill for us to use on site to leverage renewable energy to help water the reactors. Thank you team and Toni Shaw for your work.
- Youth volunteer Cam Scott has been removing the reactor pipes to enable aeration once the reactors have settled and has been lending a hand at the WVSS school working bees. Thank you, Cam.
- Peter Felstead, water quality analyst, has been teaching a new water quality lead to ensure ongoing skills matrix and succession planning. Thank you for the months of work you have achieved Peter. Lavender, thank you for putting your hand up for this piece!
- Sheryl Blythen, journalist @bemedia has been producing several informative pieces for the website in addition to working with the amazing Communication Team, including Sheryl, Sam Weston and Ashley Han as they refine the social and website platforms and investigate installing a ‘donate now’ website option. This is an important piece. Council has fully funded all the land prep and mulching work as well as supporting the restoration with 3500 eco-sourced plants for 2022, pest control and monitoring equipment. However, Te Hōnonga needs to start building cash reserves to fund the reactor materials, cover crop seed acquisition and future planting, media and pest management costs. Please take time to link in to view the extensive work the communications team are achieving. Their expertise has been pivotal to attracting volunteers, showcasing an example of regenerative restoration, profiling stakeholders who continue to invest in the project and educating the community about what we are doing to achieve results. We are indebted to this team for their work. Thank you.
- Requests for contact with Rotary have been made
- Cadey Korson and Natalie Mathews continue to film for the Massey University documentary capturing the projects social value chain. Over the last two weeks they have begun a series of interviews with a variety of stakeholders to gather qualitative data for their research. Thank you to both researchers for their expertise and commitment to better understand how value is captured within this sustainable project. Uncovering what matters to our local people will help to identify ways in which we can improve our experiences to enable climate action to occur at pace and scale to mitigate for climate change.
- Meeting held with Jennifer George, NHHA Hockey member, project volunteer and a consultant working in climate change with the Ministry for the Environment. Jennifer has extensive expertise in creating models for international climate and ecological action. Her insights into how to support SMEs to commit to sustainability is invaluable.
- Richard Chambers and Nicola from Greenhithe Community Trust kindly visited the site to talk about what we have achieved, what to look out for from their extensive experiences in restoration work and what lies ahead in terms of financial planning and project development. We are indebted to UWEN team members including Richard, Nicola, Les, Tim and Rhiannon and continue to benefit from their willingness to support us to achieve.
- Long-time local ecology volunteer John Cambridge popped down to see us for the first time. He has been amazing sharing his extensive experience and has organised selling the scrap metal found on site to help us improve our circularity. Huge thanks John!
- Nicky attended international climate change coaching workshop and a behaviour change management workshop, AC to help upskill
- Sean Harris, Rotary and Ben Pollard, Rangitoto College have been contacted to ask if Rotary would like involvement in this project.
- Ralph Bathurst, Associate Professor, reached out to ask if we could meet to discuss Massey University School of Business involvement in the project. Derek Craig, Restoration Lead, Kaipatiki has also kindly reached out to connect in with the restoration mahi and offer guidance. We have welcomed both parties on board and look forward to continuing understanding how we can work in partnership going forward.
- Contact made with Mike Bishop, CEO Harbour Sports, Peter Felstead, Chair NHC Trust, Brad Clark, CEO NHHA and Kevin O’Leary, CEO BNH to discuss the opportunity to run a SME-led business working bee on 6 September 1 – 4 pm to shift more mulch.
- Sheryl Blythen has connected in with the RNZAF. Ray Neill has connected in with the command to request the opportunity to join local SMEs on the 6th. We really look forward to having their strength and expertise to help shift the last 8 tonnes of mulch into the bioreactors if possible!
- The Asian committee met recently. We discussed how we could improve on developing experiences for Asian families. Team members came up with a suite of valuable insights and offered strong guidance. We thank these members for their willingness to educate and share their knowledge of the communities they are members of. Initiatives that will improve Asian engagement include: broader community links with local areas on social (actioning), linking in events like teaching hockey for the Asian international students at Massey to foster sense of belonging (investigating), waiting until the weather improves, being more specific about what work is required so Asian volunteers can feel more confident that they can help when they arrive, share detailed health and safety plans (actioned), enable this group to connect in with the older Asian community to ask if they would like to care for seedlings and raise them over the next year to plant next season using seed whakapapa principles and ensure when connecting with Asian students, connect with their whanau to help the students to attend (let the parents know), create FB event outlining that families are welcome and to bring the children.
- Dan continues to supply the equipment we need for the working bees, thank you Dan!
- Jade Li, NEDF have funded our carbon emissions analysis. Huge thanks to NEDF for their investment in understanding what our carbon outputs are for this project. This will enable us to plan for iterative improvement over time as we drive down towards becoming carbon negative, climate positive!
- Rain has had significant impact on the ability for schools and the Montessori to achieve their planned site work. We thank all the teachers and managers as we find solutions to making up for lost time over Winter at a time when school staff are exhausted with managing covid and the flu and all that that means for fostering student learning. We look forward to connecting when the time is right and celebrating youth leadership within this project!
- Acacia Cochise, Ventia, is patiently waiting for the opportunity to discuss indigenous research methodologies that may be able to be used, with guidance and support from Iwi/Mana Whenua, to understand how this project can improve over time.
- Jan Knight hosted Nicky and Cadey for site visits and filming the work she, Bob and Metlifecare/Bark Ltd are doing caring for the natives over the winter season at Greenwich gardens. Photos of the plants are on the website. We must also thank Jan for feeding us through the working bees! Thank you! You’re the best!
- Applications have been made for the Auckland Mayoralty Awards and Sustainable Business Network Collaboration Awards (refer to Information channel, outputs, on Teams.
- Volunteer Tony Cunningham secured an echocholation monitor and spent 2 hours at dusk last week monitoring for the long-tailed bat. Sadly, no bat wanted to be found but a pair of Ruru flew within a metre of Toni late dusk settling on a branch beside him, walking south on Alexander Stream opposite Atlas Concrete! A remarkable and welcome surprise that made the bat hunt a memorable one. If ever stakeholders needed evidence of why the team is increasing ecological wellbeing at the park, the Ruru’s presence is a wonderful reminder.
- Phil Jones, Sustainable Business Network (SBN) has been generous with his time to support the team to find ways of measuring the life cycle analysis (LCA) of trees. He has connected us with his colleague at SBN and a professor, Luitgard Schwendenmann, studying urban ecology at Auckland University. We heard back from Luitgard who kindly supplied us with some excellent LCA tree literature loaded on to Team now under resources channel. Amelia Sangster, Youth Graduate, is undertaking a wider lit search based on the leads we have in an effort to upskill the team with LCA of trees. We have also reached out to the Chair, LCA Nz but have not heard back yet. We are hopeful SBN will be able to respond in due course too, workload permitting.
- Albany freshwater monitoring collective. With support from UWEN and the Landing, we have arranged to meet as a fresh-water monitoring group to begin wider discussions on how we can unite to share information, skills and knowledge to gather data and understanding of the freshwater quality in our area.
On the horizon:
- Development of Māori and Pasifika youth leaders
- Ensure partner logos on website
- Social media graduate volunteers
- School Term 3 and 4 timetable
- Planting Aug/early Sept
- Securing 10 more local business contributors
- Development of volunteer base for working bees
- Graphic of Restoration model linked with United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals
- Development of an Integrated Value report
- Albany Basin water quality testing coordination
- Business North Harbour September magazine piece
- Business North Harbour Business Sustainability piece
- Donations capability on Te Hōnonga a Iwi website
- Conversations with the School of Management, Massey University and SBN
- Capturing the learning of the Integrated Value Report hui to consult with Iwi.
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