A new plan will support Ōrākei Local Board with strategic management of environmental projects in the local board area.
The Natural Environment Enhancement Plan identifies 67 current and planned projects happening throughout the local board area over the next three years across reserves, schools, parks, coastal cliffs, waterways, walkways, wetlands and even private backyards.
A gap analysis and assessment of these projects informed recommendations in the plan that are intended to guide the local board’s investment over the next three years.
Ōrākei Local Board chair Kit Parkinson says it’s fantastic to have an overview of what’s happening in the area, from backyard projects to major initiatives like to Eastern Bays Songbird Project, and that the plan will help ensure the local ecology is valued, protected and enhanced over the coming years.
Some of the plan’s recommendations are:
- Set up and support an Ōrākei-wide environmental forum for community groups
- Create and enhance ecological corridors to help spatially connect projects and foster connection between community groups
- Put together a backyard restoration plan suitable for the local board area that encourages projects on private land
- Set up a trap library for community members to borrow pest control tools and learn how to use them
- Focus on insect species in future biodiversity planning and environmental education
- Plant native species on both public and private land, with a particular focus on native food species
- Provide funding for environmental programmes in schools
- Provide funding for informative signage in restoration areas.
