New workers to plant 400,000 native trees and create shared pathway in Punakaiki

Wednesday, 16 December 2020

World-famous in New Zealand: The pancake rocks and blowholes at Punakaiki.

The edges of the Paparoa National Park at Punakaiki will be restored with about 400,000 new native trees planted over the next four years.

Conservation Minister Kiri Allan was in the small West Coast town on Wednesday to announce that 13 people would be employed to plant and maintain 153 hectares of one of New Zealand’s most unique environments.

The $3.6 million project would be led by Conservation Volunteers New Zealand with support from the Department of Conservation (DOC).

“The work will also conserve the unique and nationally significant Punungairo/Bullock Creek polje,” Allan said.

Conservation Minister Kiri Allan turns the first sod for a new walkway in Punakaiki.

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Bullock Creek is New Zealand’s only example of a polje – a large flat-floored depression in a karst landscape surrounded by tall cliffs and dense beech and kahikatea forest.

While on the West Coast, Allan met the district's three mayors, and the chairs of the West Coast Regional Council, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae and the West Coast Whitebaiters’ Association.

DOC has been reviewing New Zealand's whitebait fishery since 2018 because it classified four of the six whitebait species as “at risk” or “threatened”.

An artist’s impression of the new Dolomite Point Experience Centre to be built in Punakaiki.

Some proposals released in January caused outrage among West Coast whitebaiters, including the potential closure of rivers like the Haast, Punakaiki and Mohikinui for up to 10 years.

Allan said she was a whitebaiter from the North Island's East Coast.

“Everybody believes that regulation in some way shape or form is the right thing to do. There is work that could be done … so we can get some facts and figures about what is the nature of the stock here,” she said.

Allan said she had heard a range of views on key issues for the West Coast, including mining, whitebaiting, hydro-schemes and the classification of significant natural areas and stewardship land.

She deemed visiting the West Coast a priority because any “hard decisions” she would make as minister would have a big impact on West Coasters, and she needed to understand what the people wanted.

A review of stewardship land was one of her top priorities for 2021 and the West Coast would be the first region to be reviewed.

“No new mining is a really important promise that we have undertaken. We’ve got DOC land but stewardship land needs to be considered. I don’t think the two are the same,” she said.

Don't leave planting trees to the government, says landscape designer Michael Mansvelt. (Video first published in June, 2020)

Ngāti Waewae chairman Francois Tumahai said Allan was a “breath of fresh air”.

“It’s so good to have a meeting where people want to engage. We’ve been missing that for a wee while,” he said.

Allan also turned the first sod for a new $1.6m 4.2-kilometre shared walking and cycling path in Punakaiki. It would go past the new visitor centre, which would be owned by Ngāti Waewae as part of a $26m redevelopment of Dolomite Point.

Allan said the path would make Punakaiki, which sits on State Highway 6, safer to walk around.

“This is such a special place to slow down and connect with the natural environment. With the new path linking a number of key sites throughout Punakaiki, people will be able to leave their cars and enjoy a day out in nature,” she said.

State Highway 6 and the coastline near Punakaiki. (File photo)

Punakaiki is home to the iconic pancake rocks and blowholes, and attracted 500,000 visitors in 2018.

The high number of visitors put significant and unsustainable pressures on the town’s dated facilities, which could not be funded by its small group of ratepayers.

Allan also announced a new pest control apprenticeship scheme while on the West Coast.

She said training for 51 apprentices around New Zealand would be funded with $4.5m from the Jobs for Nature scheme.

The “innovative scheme” would help work on New Zealand's goal of becoming Predator Free by 2050.

The apprentices would be partnered with specialist pest control companies, eco-sanctuaries, and large landscape scale projects for a two-year training programme. Four roles would be created to oversee the programme.

Predator Free New Zealand Trust general manager Jessi Morgan said New Zealand had the highest rate of threatened species in the world.

The Jobs for Nature programme is a $1.245 billion fund to create 11,000 nature-based jobs as part of New Zealand’s Covid-19 recovery.