- Okiwi Community Ecology Project is protecting threatened native birds like the kākāriki through community planting and pest control in Okiwi Park.
- With support from Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board funding, the project has been running for over eight years, creating lasting environmental benefits.
- Local students play a key role, growing native plants, maintaining traps, and helping native bird populations like kākāriki and korimako thrive.
A number of threatened species of native birds call Aotea home, including the red crowned kākāriki. The Okiwi Community Ecology Project helps protect these species through planting and pest trapping initiatives.
Project coordinators work with locals including Te Kura O Okiwi / Okiwi School students to create a haven for our native green parakeets in and around Okiwi Park. This mahi has been going on for more than eight years, with support from Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board funding.
“The kids from the kura have taken on the role of looking after the park. With trapping as well as with seed collection,” says Thomas Daly, a local involved with Okiwi Community Ecology Project.
“The kids go foraging for seeds from the park and bring them back to the school’s nursery to raise them. Part of the process is that the kids eventually put them back into the park through our planting programmes.”
The park has a unique approach to restorative planting. Rather than using sprays to remove weeds, the community have come up with an alternative solution. Sections of the grass area are targeted at a time, smothering the weeds with plastic before removing any remaining pest plants. After this preparation, Okiwi students plant their carefully raised seedlings among special weed matting which stunts the return of pest plants.
“We’ve now got these areas that were planted a few years ago which are beautiful and really lush and thick. Some of the kids that planted these sections can see that the plants have reached three times their height now!” says Thomas.
The plants provide a safe habitat and food for the kākāriki.
Students have made and decorated nesting boxes for them, designed so that rats are unable to gain access.
Students from Te Kura O Okiwi decorating nesting boxes.
Thomas says the tamariki are also assigned to a rat trap and check them regularly.
“They’re really keen on protecting their birds and keeping the rat numbers down.”
Okiwi Community Ecology Project has been involved with trials of AT220 traps – automatic self-resetting rat traps. The traps proved effective; a single trap once caught seven rats in one night.
The plan is to introduce some more of these traps in and around the Okiwi Park alongside the regular traps that are already there.
Locals also trap on their own properties as part of the project to help decrease predator numbers in the valley.
This collaborative community effort has been rewarded with red crowned kākāriki coming back to breed in Okiwi year after year, along with a healthy kākā population and increased sightings of korimako / bellbirds.
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Think this is a great idea and want to help fund these projects for Auckland? Stand for council in Auckland's Local Elections 2025. Nominations open 4 July 2025 and close 1 August 2025, midday. If you'd like to learn more about what's involved in standing, visit voteauckland.co.nz/beacandidate |
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