Sign In / Register
Friends of Awa Matakanakana (FOAM) and Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust are bringing Dr Rebecca Eivers to Matakana for a free one-day workshop on Friday, October 31 to help landowners understand and plan wetland restoration.
Eivers is an applied freshwater ecologist, wetland specialist and water quality scientist.
FOAM coordinator Jackie Russell says Eivers’ overarching goal is to support the natural environment, and people, to be healthy and thriving.
At the workshop, Eivers will share her experience of creating small, farm-scale constructed treatment wetlands and restoring natural wetlands – for water quality and quantity treatment to enhance indigenous biodiversity within intensive farming and horticultural landscapes.
She will discuss projects including coarse sedimentation ponds, fine sediment and particulate nutrient filtration, nutrient uptake, and E. coli reduction. Plus share experiences of re-wetting and restoring existing drained and degraded wetlands.
Eivers says her aim is to ensure attendees learn how to achieve the right wetland type, in the right place for the right reasons and how to search for and recognise good opportunities for wetland re-wetting, re-creation, restoration and construction in their focus areas or catchments.
“Imagine seeing matuku-hurepo/bittern, puweto/spotless crake, and matata/fernbirds on your land,” she says.
Russell says bringing back wetlands restores native biodiversity including aquatic life – from tuna/eels, kokopu and inanga, right down the food chain to macroinvertebrates and zooplankton, as well as plants and macrophytes, and populations of native wetland birds,
“As well as boosting biodiversity, wetlands are giant sponges that filter water and soak up storm water – protecting rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal environments and our residential communities.”
The free workshop is at Green With Envy, 615 Matakana Road, Matakana on October 31, from 9.30am to 4.30pm. Lunch and light refreshments will be provided. Registration is essential at https://events.humanitix.com/matakana-wetland-workshop-with-rebecca-eivers
