Reforestation Project at Paradise Valley, Rotorua

Hello everyone,

Although we have finished our fundraising cycling journey, we want to remain involved with the conservation of New Zealand´s precious nature. We will soon clean up the website so as to get the focus on conservation projects in New Zealand and Spain.

Why in these two countries?
New Zealand because we owe it to the people who helped us on our journey and made us see that there are many and easy ways to help preserve our natural treasures. Also, we now know that New Zealand is not the carefree paradise and safehaven for the fauna and flora that we thought it was before we got here.

Spain because it is where we now live and we are trying to set up a scheme to preserve Spain´s incredibly rich wildlife as well.

But first of all, I would like to tell you about a project we visited when we stayed with the Terblanche family in Rotorua. Apart from the warm welcome we received and the great time we had staying at their farm, which is set up as a bed and breakfast, we were amazed how concerned this family is with their direct environment and how they are restoring the natural habitat in the area.

On their land, they are systematically reforesting an area which is described here below, with details on how to reforest:

Total size of the area: approx 5500 square meters

Type of trees and shrubs: kanuka (Kunzea ericoides ), cabbage tree (Cordyline australis ), black mapou ( Myrsine australis ), broadleaf ( Griselinia littoralis ) , lemonwood ( Pittosporum eugenioides ), karamu ( Coprosma macrocarpa )and five finger ( Pseudopanax arboreus ). We planted 50 of each, except for kanuka (100 ), with the help of the Rotorua Kiwi Conservation Club children and parents. The trees were donated by Environment Bay of Plenty. Later on we added 10 of Tree Lucerne ( Cytisus palmensis ), which is a smallish, fast growing, short lived exotic, used to re-establish native forest by attracting birds.

What kind of pest control and pesticide: None so far. We mulched around each tree with pine needles to suppress growth of grass and weeds. This worked well, this week , 5 months after planting, I checked the trees and found only one out of the 400 that did not survive for some reason.

Is there a fence? We built a fence -- approx 110m long, to fence out stock.

What do they hope to achieve? Create an extension of native forest, that will link with existing Ngongotaha stream boundary forest ; and keep stock out of the small spring and stream that runs down towards the Ngongotaha stream , thereby improving water quality, add aesthetic value and attract native birds.