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For more than two decades, the small, remote community of Tapora has been quietly punching well above its weight when it comes to taking care of the local environment.
Only around 400 people live out on this remote peninsula on the Kaipara Harbour, which is a good 40km drive west from Wellsford down winding, narrow roads, but the community’s commitment to planting and pest control would put many much larger settlements to shame.
Local farmers, orchardists, residents and students have worked together over many years to plant hundreds of thousands of indigenous plants along waterways and in wetlands, while mounting a concerted attack on introduced pests and predators.
Tapora Land & Coast Care Group founder Wally McConnell has lived and farmed in the area since the mid-seventies, now raising beef, a handful of alpacas and running the local campground.
He said locals first started talking about an organised approach to pest control in the mid-1990s, when Tāwharanui was getting started over on the east coast, and the group was formally incorporated in 2004.
The aim was to make the peninsula predator free, and the initial focus was on possums. To give some idea of the scale of the problem, McConnell said 50,000 were trapped and killed in just one year.
Current chair Earle Wright remembers those early days, when shooting 500 possums a night was not uncommon, and said that although the population was now under control, constant vigilance was still required, not least since possums and other pests had just enjoyed a bumper breeding season.
“Everything has gone really well this year. We were down to three percent possums on the peninsula (three possums caught for every 100 traps laid), but there are still hotspots,” he said. “Then you’ve got rats, stoats and other pests – it’s never-ending.”
Wright’s other main bugbears are wild pigs and pampas grass, both of which thrive here, especially in the Okahukura conservation area just across from the extraordinarily beautiful Manukapua Island, the largest of two long, lean strips of dune system that shield Tapora’s coastline.
The group is targeting two wetland areas in the north and south of the coastal reserve strip just across from Manukapua. Initially smothered with impenetrable pampas, gorse and wilding pines, only a heavy-duty 33-tonne digger was able to clear and mulch the giant weeds enough to allow replanting in the north section.
“We’ve planted 50,000 trees here in three years, that’s about five hectares, but there’s 1000-plus hectares of land, so it’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “We’ve been battling the pampas grass throughout with spot-spraying. It’s just horrendous, ongoing work.”
Next for the big digger treatment is the southern section and the group is currently scoping a third wetland for restoration management as well.
Then there’s work going on to protect and restore Manukapua itself. It’s a popular spot for fishing, walking and bird-watching – the name means ‘bird cloud’ – but also for four-wheel driving and hunting enthusiasts, which some feel are not compatible with wildlife preservation and the island’s sacred sites, as Wright’s brother Tarb pointed out.
“Manukapua is the birthplace of Ngati Whatua – it was one of the first landing points of the Mahuhu Ki Te Rangi waka in the 1300s,” he said. “The aim of mātauranga Māori is to create balance in all the realms around here.”
Local residents, landowners and farmers are working to instil that message via educating visitors about how precious the coastline and islands are and how important it is to protect them from damage, and from fire, such as one that burnt for a week in 2013. There is also a rāhui in place in a bid to stop people taking vast quantities of kai moana from the harbour waters.
In addition, farmers are putting in fencing to protect the coast and waterways, Tapora School students are regularly taking part in mass plantings as part of the Trees for Survival education programme, and a new native plant nursery is being established behind the community hall. (see panel right)
While the workload remains pretty constant, the results of all this community mahi are certainly bearing fruit, most notably in the return of native birds, such as the Australasian bittern, or matuku-hūrepo.
Although rarely seen and with a “nationally critical” conservation status, these big brown birds are doing well in Tapora – so well, in fact, that Earle Wright saw six of them take flight together from his land in March.
It’s a similar story with other species. Ecologist Andrew Marshall regularly visits Tapora to monitor what’s happening in the wetlands and he recently heard banded rail, spotless crake and fernbirds in one spot – anywhere else in the Auckland region, and he would only expect to hear one of those species at a time.
“This place is just so special, the strength of community action to do something,” he said. “Other parts of Auckland might have better restoration, but it’s council-led. This is a really ground-up thing, where local people really want to make a difference.”
Wright says that’s down to everyone getting on and being willing to do their bit.
“It’s about walking the talk, and doing it yourself. My Dad always said you start on your doorstep and work your way out. That’s what we’re doing on the farm, in the community and across the whole peninsula.”
His only real concern is over future funding, as budget cuts cast a potential shadow over previously stalwart supporters Auckland Council and DOC.
“We’ve come a long way in the last few years, but we’re quite concerned about funding,” he said. “We’re increasing our levies, but we’re always looking for more, and to create more interest in what we’re doing out here.”
Info: https://www.taporalandandcoastcaregroup.co.nz/ or Tapora Land & Coast Care Group on Facebook
Planting potential
One of the latest weapons in Tapora’s battle to restore the environment and increase biodiversity is a new nursery being developed behind the community hall, school and tennis courts.
In typical fashion, Land & Coast Care Group members are using local knowledge, contacts and initiative to get the job done with maximum efficiency and minimum outlay. Lotto funding is being stretched with donated items, such as metal, fence posts and shade cloth from local avocado and kiwi orchardists and landowners.
Group chair Earle Wright says the nursery is being set up for taonga species, such as swamp kauri and kahikatea, rather than focusing on more common canopy plants like flax and cabbage trees.
“We’re going to have a shade-house, a covered area for potting and an outside area for hardening plants off,” he says.
“We’ve been collecting seeds locally for years and I reckon we’ve got room for 50,000 plants here.”
The nursery will also include a gate through to Tapora School grounds, so students can come in to learn about raising plants and the importance of re-establishing native forest.
“The nursery is there for us, not to sell on plants, apart perhaps for some for conservation volunteers at Atiu Creek Regional Park,” Wright says. “We want to bring the birds back here.”
