Hawke’s Bay partnership to aid conservation

A major partnership of local and national agencies will see more than $6 million invested in conservation in Hawke’s Bay over the next five years.

The ‘Te Matau a Māui’ project aims to bring together farmers and those working to protect native species, by coordinating pest control and conservation work across wide areas of land, from conservation areas through to actively farmed land.

The project will kick off early in 2015, focusing on 26,000 hectares of Cape to City land between Waimarama and Havelock North. It is being jointly funded by the Aotearoa Foundation, the Department of Conservation, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Landcare Research and Cape Sanctuary.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has agreed to commit $1.5 million to the project including $300,000 of staff time over the next five years.

A core project funder, Aotearoa Foundation, is also committing $2.3 million to Te Matau a Maui over the next five years. The Department of Conservation has committed $1.6 million including sustaining the Poutiri Ao ō Tāne work and Landcare Research $700,000 towards monitoring and research for the wider project. Cape Sanctuary is a key partner already investing around $600,000 annually.

The proposal has evolved over the past two years, building on successful pest control techniques used in the Poutiri Ao ō Tāne project - also initiated with the support of the Aotearoa Foundation – which is already restoring sea birds and other native species to an area in the Maungaharuru Ranges, near Tūtira.

Commenting on the project, Fenton Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Chairman Fenton Wilson explains “success long term for New Zealand’s unique biodiversity substantially rests on our ability to integrate public and private biodiversity efforts across New Zealand.

“For that to succeed it must be a win – win for our farming community.

“This is one of the cornerstones of the Hawke’s Bay regional biodiversity strategy.

“We’ve recorded declining possum numbers on farmed land and urban areas thanks to supportive landowners and residents.

“That provides the opportunity to target other predator pests in our farmland as a pathway to large scale predator control similar to the success of the regional council’s Possum Control Area programme.”

3rd November 2014 - RECREATIONAL WATER QUALITY MONITORING COMMENCES IN HAWKE’S BAY