CPR - 66
Region: Auckland
Award Category: Auckland
Year: 2014
Our Volunteering group here is CPR - 66 - which means Catchment Pond Rescue, 66 Alnwick Street, Warkworth.
We’ve been working together now for over 2 years and have a good core of local volunteers who spend an hour or so often, assisting my husband and I in the process of tidying up the two reserve areas which happen to be next door to our new home.
When we arrived here in 2011 we found that contractors had been called in to spray Convolvulus, thistles and exotic grasses where earlier there had been council plantings done. What a mess! The blanket spraying had practically killed off most of the native grasses and made many of the others look ‘sick’! Some native tree species had either died or were showing suffering and dead branches, etc. It wasn’t long before the weeds returned!
So with no weeding contractors forthcoming we contacted the Auckland Council to see what could be done.
We found a ‘gem’ in Paul Duffy, the A C Park and Reserves North Officer and so from there we have been able to ‘take over’ the ‘guardianship’ of these reserves and so formed the volunteer group to commence the tidying, immediately.
We have managed to plant new natives and transplant some about much of the area. We now spend hours monthly attending to the tidying, etc.
The results have been most successful as Paul Duffy is a real friend of the group and supplies us willingly with any requirements needed for the tasks.
The catchment pond now has Eels and Kokupu swimming around which has to be really exciting!