To sustain the environment of the Whangateau harbour and its catchment
On Thursday October 19 a group of students from Mahurangi College joined with volunteers to conduct the annual Whangateau Harbour Care cockle count. When the data is analysed it will be interesting to see if the cockle beds are recovering or not. The shellfish beds have been closed since 2009 when there was a large die off of cockles.
Over the weekend of October 14 and 15 volunteers planted around 1500 trees, grasses and ferns at the Quintal’s Creek site (Near the Sawmill Brewery). Plants were provided by the Gecko NZ Trust who came and helped with the planting as did staff and students from the Leigh Marine Laboratory and Whangateau Harbour Care Group members and interested locals.
The Harbour Care Group has been in touch with Panuku Auckland Development to try and find out what the future plans are for this site and whether it is to be sold or kept as an Auckland Council asset. Also, if there are plans for remediation of the site and what steps are being undertaken to ensure erosion does not occur adding to the already significant sedimentation load entering the harbour each time there is heavy rain.
February 2017
2/22/2017
Edition 1 volume 1 [Read more…]
Whangateau Harbour – Andrew Martin (represented by Vivian Gallery)
The Whangateau Harbour Group congratulates the Local Board on its vision and commitment to building a community led plan for the Rodney area. We look forward to working closely with the Local Board to develop a priority plan for the care, protection and health of the Whangateau Harbour and the streams and waterways which feed into it.
Our group has as its primary objective, to help local people work together to plan and implement sustainable management and protection of the harbour, land and other resources in the Whangateau Harbour catchment area.
In our submission we wish to focus on the outcomes for Rodney’s harbours, waterways and environment and the three objectives which aim to ensure they are cared for, protected and healthy with specific relation to the Whangateau catchment area. We will look at each of these three objectives in turn.
The health of our environment and our waterways and harbours is of vital importance to the Rodney district. In particular the Whangateau Harbour as it is a significant resource because of its benthic habitat which provides a nursery for fish breeding stocks, is important as a feeding ground for fish and stingrays and is the only known significant parore nursery in the Hauraki Gulf.
The Whangateau harbour is also an important natural resource which provides clean waters and abundant food for a variety of bird species. Migratory birds such as the bar tailed godwits, banded dotterel, South Island pied oystercatchers, wrybill and turnstones as well as local birds which feed there all rear round; dotterel, variable oystercatcher, pied stilt, white faced heron, reef heron, shags, Caspian tern, white fronted and fairy tern and royal spoonbill.
It also provides a safe recreational area for boating, paddle boarding, kayaking, snorkelling, swimming and at low tide, walking. The Omaha Sand Spit and Horseshoe Island are nesting sites for some of our most endangered birds. [Read more…]
March 2017
3/23/2017
Edition 1 volume 2 [Read more…]
April 2017
4/24/2017
Edition 1 volume 3 [Read more…]
Whangateau Harbourcare 