"Tree huggers" restoring river

Eighteen years and 150,000 planted trees later – and the Maraetotara Tree Trust says it still has 10 years and 100,000 trees to go.

From the high hill country east of Hastings to the river mouth at Te Awanga, the Maraetotara river stretches over 40km – and a phenomenal effort over the last 18 years by the trust has seen the river rejuvenated by riparian planting.

The trust, aiming to provide a continuous corridor of native bush from the hinterland to the sea, had an enormous task ahead of them when they formed in 2002. The stream bed had become choked by invasive willows, flooded neighbouring farmland regularly, and was accessible to livestock over most of its 43km length. Native bush remnants aside, a full 30km stretch of river required planting.

Even now, with a phenomenal 150,000 native trees in the ground, the trust expects the planting work to be completed in another decade.

About 2000 of those trees have been funded through donations to Trees That Count, including 100 through DairyNZ’s The Vision is Clear initiative called Do Something Tree-Warding. It encouraged the public to donate a native tree to help protect waterways. Donations were matched by Trees That Count to projects assisting community groups nationwide with riparian restoration.   

The work at Maraetotara has also relied on teamwork with local bodies. Many landowners and the Hawkes’ Bay Regional Council recognised the merit of the trust’s work early on. The council has assisted with willow clearing and fencing that prepares the land for the native trees and through their Trees at Cost and Cape to Coast programmes.

The teamwork of the entire community is an essential element for the trust, who at one point employed a planting coordinator to liaise with the many volunteers, schools, and local groups who assist in the hard work of planting. Some of these workers have come from local prisons, with the planting work sometimes leading to other employment.

A younger group of volunteers has also emerged, with strengths as diverse as freshwater ecology and information technology boosting the knowledge and skills of the extant group of trustees.

“The group is changing character,” Alan Berry, the trust’s treasurer, says, “but we still have the same vision: the whole river planted in trees.”

The vision is fast becoming a reality. This year, the trust enters into a sponsorship with Water Testing Hawkes’ Bay for thorough monitoring of the River’s quality.

“We feel we should demonstrate the merit of riparian planting on the basis of scientific testing – and show that our work has contributed to not only water quality but also biodiversity,” Berry says.

Old native forest once covered the Maraetotara’s banks. Local Maori legend suggests that pre-European fire decimated much of the forest, subsequently milled for timber and converted to pasture. Along with the historic dam, the Maraetotara Falls are now an iconic swimming destination for locals.

The trust’s origins stemmed from 2002 when a small group of local citizens and environmentalists discovered a common interest in riparian restoration.

“We were rather like orphaned tree-huggers,” observes Hylton McDermott, the sole remaining trustee from the original group. “Planting is now a mainstream pursuit by comparison.”

The effects of the work at the Maraetotara are already evident, even reaching nearby Havelock North and Hastings. The near-continuous corridor of native bush is not only helping to stop cattle access to the river but also contributing to native bird diversity in the region.

“Tui are everywhere, and we now see kereru in town, something we had never enjoyed in the past,” Berry says.

Those kind of benefits keep the group motivated for the next decade or so of planting: “Our original trustees may have been daunted by the magnitude of the task they had set themselves had they realised the plantings would require some 250,000 native trees,” says Berry.

“But eighteen years later, fruition of their dream is in sight.”