Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park opens its gates to the public

Friday, 15 November 2019

Hamilton's Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park opened to the public for the first time in November 2019, and this video was first published at that point.

Threatened natives birds such as the kiwi and takahē could soon find a home in Hamilton's backyard.

The Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park opens its gates to the public on Saturday, marking a milestone moment for the city's showpiece eco project.

Access to the 65-hectare park, located on the city's north-west outskirts, has previously been by arrangement only.

Restoration ecologist Professor Bruce Clarkson has led the project since its inception and describes the public opening as 'monumental'.

Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park chairman Professor Bruce Clarkson said Saturday's public opening is a monumental moment for the park.

* Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park expanded

* Work begins to open up Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park to the public**

'It's vindication for all the people that put huge amounts of work into it, who had confidence that it would work,' Clarkson said.

'So it's a significant milestone because what it represents is the culmination of 15 years of hard work. Finally we have something to show people.'

In the early years, Waiwhakareke consisted of grazing farmland and stands of grey willow and weedy vegetation around a natural peat lake.

Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park is New Zealand's largest inland restoration project and features a natural peat lake.

The first native tree, a kahikatea, was planted at Waiwhakareke in 2004 by then Conservation Minister Chris Carter.

Today, the tree stands 15 metres tall.

Recent upgrades to Waiwhakareke include viewing platforms, a loop track, a public toilet, and interpretive information panels.

About 35ha of the park has been replanted with native species. Eventually natives will cover more than 50ha.

Once the park's opening is ticked off, attention will turn to establishing a predator-proof fence around the site.

'If we're going to be really serious about bringing back the treasured, the most valuable of our native birds, we will need a predator-proof fence and so we will have to start, pretty soon, thinking about how we are going to raise the funding for that,' Clarkson said.

'And hopefully in the next decade or so we should be in a position where we can construct a predator-proof fence around the patch and then really start to see things like kiwi, even takahē, some of the rarer bids like tīeke or saddleback, brought back into the park for the benefit of future generations.'

Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park is located on the city's north-west fringe, opposite the Hamilton Zoo.

A predator-proof fence is estimated to cost $1.5 - $1.8 million.

Waiwhakareke, which is New Zealand's largest inland restoration project, attempts to recreate the major ecosystems found in the Hamilton basin prior to the arrival of humans.

It's the most significant indigenous biodiversity patch in Hamilton, dwarfing the city's next largest indigenous natural area, Claudelands Park (5.2ha).

The Hamilton City Council recently completed a series of upgrades to Waiwhakareke, including a loop track, two viewing platforms, a toilet block, and interpretive information panels.

Saturday's opening will include a scavenger hunt and guided walks of the park.

One of the big appeals of Waiwhakareke is its location, Clarkson said.

'You've got peat soils down by the lake, you've got the hill slope, you've got the ridges, you've got all that diversity of topography - it makes it perfect. And it's on the backdoor of all the people of Hamilton and, even more, it's directly across the road from the zoo.'

The restoration project has not been without its critics. In 2014, then city councillor Garry Mallett unsuccessfully pushed to have a 5.1ha block of land bordering the park carved off and sold to developers.

Clarkson said Waiwhakareke is an intergenerational project. It will take several hundred years to fully recreate the indigenous ecosystems once found in Waikato.

The joint-project has involved community group Tui 2000, Waikato University, Hamilton City Council, Wintec, hapu group Nga Mana Toopu o Kirikiriroa, and Waikato Regional Council.

'Waiwhakareke has involved all these key players. It's an example of what people sometimes refer to as a collective impact. When you come together as a collective, you can just do so much better.'

Clarkson has travelled overseas three times in the past three months, speaking about habitation restoration initiatives in New Zealand, and in particular Waiwhakareke.

'At the end of my talks, I've had Americans come up to me and say stuff like: 'You know, in the rest of the world, a lot of people do a lot of talking. But in New Zealand, you're doing things'.'

* Saturday's public opening runs from 1pm to 3pm.