The council had sought an exemption, but MPI determined that an exemption under section 179A of the legislation did not apply, meaning it needed to be replanted.<\/p>\n
P\u014dhowera Park project manager Colette Doughty said the council had agreed to plant 5.37ha in native forest by February 2029.<\/p>\n
It will be replanted in blocks of a minimum of 1ha, with a minimum width of 30m and will contain trees capable of growing to 5m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect to achieve a canopy cover of more than 30% within 10 years,\u201d Doughty said.<\/p>\n
While MPI does not require any reporting, the council will establish its own in-house reporting.<\/p>\n
The reserve has been renamed P\u014dhowera Park, named after the banded dotterel or p\u014dhowera seabirds, which nest in the area.<\/p>\n
It was also a popular recreation area for cyclists and walkers.<\/p>\n
Friends of P\u014dhowera has been formed, with the first community planting day held last month.<\/p>\n
A second planting day was due to be held on Friday, September 11, while Kaik\u014dura High School students were due to visit the site next week.<\/p>\n
The Friends of P\u014dhowera has been busy forming partnerships with local community groups, schools and businesses, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will look at having a monthly working bee over the summer to keep this group going and establish a watering plan to care for the plants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers have joined the Friends of P\u014dhowera to help plant 700 trees. Photo \/ Kaik\u014dura District Council<\/p>\n
A partnership has been formed with tourism operator EcoZip, which will provide native plants from its nursery \u2013 paid for by its customers.<\/p>\n
The council will now work on upgrading the main entrance and carpark, clearance across the logged area and installing a 1km track and wooden platform.<\/p>\n
Staff are looking at options to develop the area, including a nature play and rest area with a flying fox, a dog exercise area, upgrading trails, installing signage to tell stories of the area and creating a disc golf course.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt [disc golf] seems a relatively easy thing to install and a cheap option for families to enjoy,\u201d Doughty said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we will seek ideas from the high school students when they are here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council had sought an exemption, but MPI determined that an exemption under section 179A of the legislation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1259,273,3238,2740,34888,38289,97163,111,139,69,74835,120595,10665,147,1240],"class_list":["post-596963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-community","tag-environment","tag-forestry","tag-former","tag-helps","tag-kaikura","tag-natives","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pitching","tag-replant","tag-reserve","tag-science","tag-south"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}