Young people, young plants.
Seems like a good fit.
The Haehaeata Natural Heritage Trust heads into the next phase of planting at the Half Mile Recreation Reserve near Alexandra and will be involving Dunstan High School students in the annual monitoring of the project, starting from Thursday 15 May 2025.
Haehaeata Trust Project coordinator Rachael Baxter said they will be looking at last year’s planting effort.
“It will give us some stats on what the best and worst areas and species were: All good stuff to know for continuing to make the project even more successful in the years to come.”
Over the past two years, the Half Mile reserve has been undergoing a significant restoration project involving the removal of wilding conifers (pines) and the planting of native vegetation. The project is part of a broader effort by the Central Otago District Council to manage wilding conifers on council-owned land. The reserve has been identified as a significant seed dispersal site for wilding pines. The aims of the project included restore the reserve to a more natural Central Otago landscape, show casing the views, rocky formations, and archaeological features of the site, providing open spaces and informal walking routes, incorporating hardy native plantings for shelter and biodiversity and restore the existing water race by planting riparian vegetation.
A year ago, the Council, which has a five-year memorandum of understanding with the Haehaeata Trust for a stage re-planting of the reserve, began planting out sections of the reserve, and now the work will continue with three planting days scheduled, the first coming up on Sunday 25 May, and the next on 8 June and 29 June. More details are on the poster.
The team will be planting, matting, guarding and labelling 250 natives each session and the holes will once again be dug.
There will be two different locations within the reserve this year so registering for the event would be appreciated so that the team can communicate changes to the details that people will need to know.
Link to registration form:https://forms.gle/akC1TkAGdTGP94wS7
