Predator free NZ put up the Whangawehi story on their website. If you want to know more about the article, please follow the links :
http://predatorfreenz.org/local-marae-community-inspires-environmental-change/
or facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PFNewZealand/
Enjoy the reading
On Thursday the 19th of May, Patricia Taumata-Albert and Hineira Hooper-Kawana, students at Te Mahia School, gave their pepeha and introduced themselves to the members of the catchment committee. Both students displayed their completed logo’s and explained their perspective of how the logo should look and the process that it took to achieve their end result. A clear file of some of the children’s attempts at the logo was left for the members to peruse.
We thank you Te Mahia School for their help and support. It is great to have the students involved in all the different aspects of our work including the design of our logo.
Nga mihi nui kia koutou
Please click on the different sketches : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Hi all,
The Whangawehi community has been given the opportunity to compete as a finalist (for the third time) at the Green Ribbon Award. This nomination recognises the outstanding effort of the WCMG to protecting the environment. Congratulations to you to you all for this National recognition.
Newsletter 7 is now available, follow the link and enjoy the reading :
Mark Lewis from DOC carried out today his first aerial goat shooting operation on Moemotu Station. The owners have agreed to remove the goat population for the benefit of NZ indigenous fauna and flora. A muster was undertaken on the same property last week and removed 350 goats. Well done for this very successful first goat control operation.
The habitat restoration programme is now well underway.
At completion of this project, the group will have met a major milestone (7 km of stream fenced off on both side). This ambitious project is the fruit of an intense collaboration between all stakeholders and sponsors. Well done to you all.
A big thank you to Steeve Campbell from Wairoa Fencing who is moving to the South Island. We wish him all the best in his new life. His workmanship and reliability will be missed by all. Good luck Steeve.
On Tuesday, Arthur Bowen undertook his water monitoring run as part of the Whangawehi Catchment water monitoring plan. This month, Arthur carried out the Macro Community Invertebrate Index which is a way of assessing the health of a stream by studying and following the communities (or bugs) that live in it. This study is carried out every year and we hope that over time our ” bugs” will tell us how healthy is our Awa.
Arthur observed some very low water levels for the season with some algae growth in places. White baits and native fish were observed in small numbers.
Rangimarkus Heke, Fund Manager for Nga Whenua Rahui, came to visit the site yesterday. He was impressed by the work achieved so far and full of compliments. Trees have grown a lot over the summer due to a reasonably moist climate and a good tree maintenance policy. Rangi got the opportunity to visit Pat’s wetlands and understood how all these ecosystems interact. With a significant increase in frog numbers this year, he was confident that the rare Bittern wouldn’t be long to come. Rangimarkus will be assisting the group with a new funding package via the MTK fund. Nga mihi Rangi.
On the 15th of April, Ross Mear and Kelvin Hale (co owners of Moemotu Station) signed the Whangawehi Catchment Managament Group’s Memorandum of Understanding. Both owners are extremely supportive of the group’s vision and it is great to have them on board. The owners’ vision is to gradually retire the station and let it revert to native trees.
We welcome Kelvin and Ross and are looking forward to working with them.
Photos on the way to Moemotu Station :
Macroinvertebrates are aquatic bugs large enough to be seen without a microscope and are sensitive to organic pollution. Our water monitoring programme includes the traditional stream quality assessment based on analysing water quality and chemical data. However this technique often misses “pulses” of stress like pollution events because the change in water chemistry is short lived. The composition of the macroinvertebrates community can “record” a pulse of stress because the diversity and abundance of the biotic community will take longer to recover. Hence the macroinvertebrates community are more integrated and can be a better measure of overall stream health.
MCI scores
MCI>120 : Excellent
100<MCI <120 : Good
80<MCI<100 : Moderate
MCI<80 : Poor
HBRC and the Whangawehi Catchment Management Group have been carrying out the MCI indexing for several years. Follow the link for more information :
Whangawehi Catchment Management Group 