Wetland “will take care of the water coming off our place”
From left, landowner Chris Hill explaining aspects of the project to some of the members of the Cobb Mitigation Fund Local Advisory: Mik Symmons, Philip Simpson, Cath Hindmarsh and Robin Manson. Photo: Neil Wilson.
An area of Chris Hill’s Packard Road farmland, painstakingly drained by an earlier generation, will soon revert to wetland.
“Like everyone else at the time, my father Morry Hill spent a fair bit of his farming career draining swamps like this to gain pasture and now I’m turning part of this one back into a wetland.”
Chris and her partner Anya van Holten have been working for about four months to construct a pond, realign drainage ditches, fences and provide measures to slow down the water flow, producing a thriving wetland of about a hectare in size on part of the property.
“We’re pretty confident that what we’re doing here will take care of the water that comes off our place into the Motupipi catchment,” said Chris. “There’s quite a community of interest in the catchment. The Packards are doing things further down the road and we want to do our bit too.”
The role of wetlands in improving water quality and assisting with flood control is now well understood, and landowners who want to restore them are eligible for assistance of various kinds.
Chris had three days’ help from an organisation called Conservation Volunteers. Five young people came from their base in Punakaiki to Golden Bay and planted harakeke on Chris’s land in last week’s wet conditions (ideal for wetland planting but less ideal for the young volunteers).
Conservation Volunteers is a not-for-profit trust that works with local communities, government agencies and the business sector to undertake conservation projects using volunteer labour. Usually the volunteers are young people from overseas who want to combine some overseas travel with community service that makes a difference to the environment. The five who came to the Bay last week were Sarah Thain, Jenny Hodges and Sarah Bennett from England and Namu Kwon and Won Gu from South Korea. Sarah Bennett and Jenny are having a gap year and came to New Zealand after working for Conservation Volunteers in Australia. They said they are enjoying being involved in the project because they can see it is making a difference.
“It’s nice to think that, in a few years’ time, there’ll be something permanent here that we helped to plant,” said Jenny.
Their supervisor, Sam Rye, explained that the funding for this project came from the Fonterra’s Catchment Care programme, an initiative between Conservation Volunteers and Fonterra.
“The programme aims to enhance over a million square metres of New Zealand’s waterways, wetlands and catchment zones,” said Sam.
Chris said the volunteers had been absolutely great. “Everyone has. We’ve had had a lot support for this project. Sollys have been great too. We brought three truckloads of huge harakeke clumps from the Ward-Holmes farm and the volunteers spent a day breaking the big heads down into plantable fans. TDC supplied the posts for the fences around the wetland because obviously you’ve got to keep stock out. We’ve had help from Rhys Barrier from Fish and Game too. He wrote an ecological report and put in an application on our behalf to the Cobb Mitigation Fund. He also helped with the siting of the pond and design of the wetland. It’s starting to work; it’s already wetter than it was a month ago.”
When The GB Weekly visited last week, the Cobb Mitigation Fund local advisory panel was visiting Chris and Anya’s wetland project to see whether it might qualify for a grant. Advisory panel members Cathy Hindmarsh, Robin Manson, Tracey Osborne, Brian Petterson, Philip Simpson and Mik Symmons saw the new pond and its bund, the newly fenced wetland area and its crafty earthworks designed to slow down the water flow. They also saw the two Sarahs, Jenny, Namu and Won hard at work near the end of their planting task.
“It’s interesting that Chris is reversing what her father did all those years ago,” said Robin. “It was progress then, turning some wetlands into pasture, and it’s progress now, turning some pasture into wetlands.”
Neil Wilson
How do wetlands work?
Flood control. Wetlands absorb water during heavy rain, releasing water gradually so flooding it is reduced. Downstream water flows and ground-water levels are also maintained during periods of low rainfall. Wetlands help stabilise shorelines and riverbanks.
Water quality. As water moves into a wetland, the flow rate decreases, allowing particles to settle out. Plant surfaces provide filtration, absorption of solids and add oxygen to the water. Growing plants remove nutrients. This cleansing role of wetlands protects downstream environments.
