Mānawatia a Matariki!
It is a special time of year for the restoration.
We wish to acknowledge our people who have passed this year. We thank Louise for her work as an octogenarian at working bees and her role with bird counting. She is remembered for her place within the restoration as a valued leader and alumni.
We honour and care for new whānau, especially David Then from ICB, who arrived very early, and is thriving. We have planted a strong kowhai to celebrate his precious life.
We wish to affirm our bonds with Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara, thank them for their vision and leadership, their important and unique knowledge and wisdom as we enter Matariki. Indigenous knowledge has been instrumental to us as we learn about our local environment, its needs and our responsibilities.
We celebrate our youth leaders, especially those who work alongside our stream, Alicia and Mountains to Sea as they assess the health of our awa. Also, the pest management team led by Haemish, Elouise, Daniel, Madeleine, Nate, and Les and Louis from UWEN as they work hard to trap along Alexander Stream. These people are our restoration heroes, working tirelessly to ensure our plants and cover crops can thrive.
We remain in awe of our specialists, Richard Nahi, Kaumatua, Matt Cummings, regenerative specialist, Nicholas Mayne, plant specialist, and the ecological leaders at UWEN who readily share their expertise to support growth and development, enabling corridors of positive change to unfold across the rohe.
We salute our older adult team. The combination of their life experience, insights, patience, positive energy and willingness to work together enabled us to begin our own nursery this year. What remarkable people the Settlers team are.
We recognise the courage and fortitude of small business partners as they carve out ways to take climate action in tough economic times. We acknowledge it is easier not to prioritize environmental and social sustainability when the market is this flat. However, we all benefit from your organisation’s bravery, fortitude and commitment to do the right thing for the planet and for society. In terms of our larger organisations, we value your leadership and resilience. We understand that by allowing us to leverage your skills, knowledge and resources, we amplify our capability, achieving results that matter now, and for future generations of people. The ecosystems young people inherit cannot be just surviving, they need to be thriving.
We celebrate our people who are neurodiverse, and our people from cultural groups who offer new insights and knowledge to help us improve. We thank our people who manage mixed abilities as they find ways to offer huge value on land that is not easily accessible. Listening to your experiences helps us to ensure all our people are welcome to contribute value and achieve positive impact within Rosedale Park, and beyond. We are mindful of and thank the men at Paremoremo Prison who provide half our plants each year as they work hard to make positive investments into their local communities.
We welcome new people to our place as we work with foundation partners and young people to regenerate whenua, preserve and restore the awa, increase social equity within our community, improve the use of Rosedale Park, generate belonging, increase the physical, mental and social wellbeing of our people, promote environmental pride, foster biodiversity, amplify business resilience, decrease our carbon footprints and sequester carbon to mitigate climate change.
The following actions and outcomes occurred across June:
- Mountains to Sea worked alongside our youth leader to review the dissolved oxygen levels in the stream. We are pleased to report the levels were above normal again.
- New school, AGE, has systematically deconstructed four bioreactors enabling access to compost for planting and the transfer of the reactors to the 2024/25 site to harvest pest plants to convert to compost for the final 4000 m2 that need restoring within the park
- We confirm we will be heading upstream in 2026 to restore Exeter Reserve
- We have support from Ngati Whātua o Kaipara to work to connect with the new development next to Massey University. We hope to welcome several thousand new community members and encourage their involvement in native planting and animal pest management from inception.
- Huge shout out to Trees that Count and Shrub nurseries for the 900 new plants.
- For the first time, we welcomed Albany Junior High School together with Mountains to Sea, to undertake some riparian planting at the restoration! We hope you can return soon.
- Foundation school Westminster Christian School returned to plant with us along the riparian border and up on the steep sloped in wet conditions! They nailed off planting in a difficult place! Thank you! We want to share that Westminster continue to walk to and from site to reduce their carbon footprints- it’s a near five kilometre walk there and back. Bravo!
- We continue to work with school students who are designing traps for school projects or hoping to begin their own nursery.
- We are in the process of progressing the school-led ‘own a trap line’ to complete securing a halo around Rosedale Park. Huge thanks to the local schools for their interest and to Rangitoto College for their investment into two trap lines!
- We are beginning to advertise the opportunity for businesses to own a trap line or join a Friday afternoon trap line group in our business district. Please contact Nicky if you’d like more information on hello@restoringrosedalepark.org.nz
- Samantha Weston and Sheryl Blythen have progressed the draft of our 3D model and we look forward to sharing it with you next month!
- We have three new organisations who have contacted us to undertake restoration work. Thank you for your leadership and we look forward to welcoming you on site in July!
- Our business activation youth leaders have reached out to new organisations. Please connect with us if you would like to be involved and we will ensure you have opportunities to invest time, resources, finance or expertise.
- We were fortunate to be shortlisted and win the Environmental Sustainability Award at Sport New Zealand’s prizegiving. Thank you, Sport New Zealand, for the the opportunity to talk with finalists and learn how we can improve. We hope that we can work with sports groups around Aotearoa to create new green spaces and preserve the blue spaces across the year.
Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori,
Nicky Shave
Coordinator Te Hōnonga a Iwi
North Harbour Hockey.
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