A group of landowners at a field day hosted by the Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group.
A group of landowners at a field day hosted by the Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group.
A group of South Waikato farmers dedicated to increasing biodiversity in their backyard have had a funding boost from Predator Free NZ Trust.
Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group was given $3000 to help households in Tokoroa trap pests.
Since 2021, Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group has focused onfencing waterways and planting, which has seen more than 15,000 plants planted around Waikato River tributaries each year.
The group planned to work with local households on the edge of the Matarawa Stream - one of the tributaries that flows through the Pokaiwhenua catchment.
Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group co-ordinator Hadleigh Putt told the Waikato Herald the main objective was to increase biodiversity.
“We know that as we create these great habitats for native species, there’s also a lot of pests that also use those areas and predate on our native species.”
Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group co-ordinator Hadleigh Putt holding a tuna [eel] as part of a baseline survey of stream health.
With funding now available from Predator Free NZ Trust, Putt said they wanted to make residents more aware of the wider issue.
“We need to be controlling predators, and some people aren’t aware that predators are destroying our native flora and fauna.
“It’s about making landowners more aware that it’s highly likely there are a large number of rats, ferrets, stoats and weasels just quietly doing their destructive work.”
Predator Free NZ Trust has a nationwide mission to make NZ predator-free by 2050. Chief executive Jessi Morgan said in recent years, more and more people had come on board with the mission.
“I think there’s been a shift in mentality for New Zealand - that conservation isn’t just something that happens in our national parks and [on] Department of Conservation lands.
“Private land and farmlands will need to control predators across all those areas too.”
She said New Zealand had already done a great job eradicating pests - now it was about removing the last predators, which was tricky.
“They’re really clever. We need new and innovative ways of removing those last few remaining predators.”
Morgan said funding for the Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group would contribute to the nationwide mission.
“The group can buy a couple hundred traps with the funding, and most backyards only need one trap in their backyard, so the number of households involved can quickly increase to a couple hundred.”
The Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group received the funding as part of the Predator Free Communities Funding Programme, which was first initiated in 2014.
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.
![Pokaiwhenua Catchment Group co-ordinator Hadleigh Putt holding a tuna [eel] as part of a baseline survey of stream health.](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/QJPISOIYZFAZDCJQI7UXXIXQVE.jpg?auth=1efdf2f77f6eb9b7d008e5c62ed68fe0dfad46664ac72d6c3d26667300cc2a52&width=16&height=30&quality=70&smart=true)