Source: Department of Conservation
A collaborative environmental project on Hokitika’s doorstep is a legacy project for Jobs for Nature.
“Every town has a wasteland beside it where people have gone and dumped their rubbish and dumped their weeds and tear round on their motorbikes.”
Tim Shaw is a senior ranger in the Hokitika District Office and he’s talking about Wadeson Island, which lies adjacent to the township of Hokitika in the Hokitika River and is the largest greenspace area that is available for the public to use in the area.
Tim says Jobs for Nature was set up to leave legacies and the legacy for Hokitika was to look after this spot better.
The Hokitika river is a place of significance to mana whenua and the wider Hokitika community. Over the years Wadeson Island has been the site of grazing, wharf areas, whitebaiting, pubs / drinking, rubbish dumping, gravel extraction, rugby league and even a cricket reserve.
Since work first started at the site, around 2000, the project has been driven by individuals and groups identifying opportunities and funding to move things forward one step at a time.
Over the past couple of years, through Jobs for Nature, Wadeson Island has enjoyed a major boost to this effort. Two Jobs for Nature project teams have been responsible, the Sustainable Whitebait Fisheries Project managed here by Conservation Volunteers NZ and the Weed Free Tai Poutini Project with a contracted team from MBC Environmental.
The two teams have torn through the site removing weeds, which were suppressing the native foliage, and rubbish, of which there was plenty. Channels were dug to create habitat for whitebait in a failed sports field and this was followed by planting, with thousands of cardboard plant protectors covering the area, and well as thousands of transferred native seedlings from nearby forestry areas.
“Jobs for Nature led the way. Once people saw success they got motivated and involved,” Tim says.
The work going on inspired others to get on board. As well as the work done through Jobs for Nature, a new section of trail has been built by Westland Milk Products, which takes people through an area of lowland forest that people didn’t even realise was there.
Local contractors also pitched in, retiring an old gravel storage area and providing top soil from a nearby work area to create a suitable area for planting. Westland District Council also upgraded the existing section of track with the end result being a great amenity area for Hokitika residents and a place where nature could re-establish itself.
There’s still another season of weed control left for the project to undertake, and by this time the new native plantings should be tall enough to evade being strangled by weeds.
As the vegetation grows it will shade the new channels and hopefully provide good habitat for native fish.
“What was previously just a big willow and blackberry infested spot will be looked after a lot better” says Tim.