2021 April
Kia ora whanau,
Plants
We are gaining access to the plants, that were grown from seed gathered from our wetlands. They will be planted out at the wetlands when we finally get to plant out again.
We will be taking care of them until we can get out to the wetlands to plants.
KiwiRail
we are still trying to deal with the ongoing issues with the KiwiRail and access to our wetlands, and we are not the only Trust that is facing this problem...
This is correspondence with Abi our liaison with DOC
Kia ora Hone,
Just updating you on the situation with Koputaroa. We are keeping the harakeke plants alive as best we can. I will visit them again this week. With regards to access, I went to the kiwirail offices in Palmerston North to ask for a name of a local person to talk to but there wasn’t anyone local dealing with access to the track.. I was given a name of someone in Wellington but they have not returned any of my calls.
After talking with a previous staff member, I have asked to get Information on legal access to the cemetery, Koputaroa, and your whānau land looked at by our legal staff in National Office. They are currently doing this
I will be phoning the local landowners as a next stage, but they are on the western side of the stream. I can find potentially out the owners of the people who have land adjacent to the McGregor whenua to see if they will allow access through their land. If you would like to discuss this, please call or email me. It’s all painfully slow, arohamai, but I haven’t forgotten this issue.
Ngā mihi
Abi
Abi Wightman
Ranger, Biodiversity — Kaitiaki, Kanorau Koiora
Department of Conservation — Te Papa Atawhai
M: +64 27 540 5412
Te Papaioea / Palmerston North Office
28 North Street | Private Bag 11010, Palmerston North 4442
T: +64 6 350 9700
Kia ora Abi,
Many thanks for the follow up. It's be great if we could get access again to the land, especially along the rail track (as many of our whānau who come are either young or kaumātua), but if not that track-side access then some other access point that we can use.
I wrote to the CEO of KiwiRail last year, but didn't get a response (not even an acknowledgement), so am grateful for you continuing to pursue this on our behalf.
If you get the name of the person in Wellington, can you send me that, as I could also follow-up from our end, if you think that would help?
We can also do another pick-up for plants if needed, or take some more, as we also have a place across the road from Aroha where we could possibly keep some until planting.
Mauri ora,
Hone
Here are some online resources to help if you want to create a Wetland
PDF to download from DOC
PDF to download from BOPC