TOSSI chairperson comment Winter 2021

Sometimes in the city, when you see everyone frenetically rushing about on their daily business, you wonder if we are ever going to reduce our emissions, save our planet and its wildlife. Then you come across people such as Brian Midgelow-Marsden of AECOM who was alongside me helping put out almost 6000 plants for planting on Slip Gully. He told me that since the Covid-19 pandemic he only goes to work twice a week and works the rest of the week from home. AECOM has saved 70 per cent of its emissions as a result. Let’s hope other companies are doing the same.

TOSSI Education and Awareness Coordinator, Marguerite Vanderkolk, said “We’re all in our own small way contributing to Predator Free 2050,” when she appeared in the recent documentary series Fight for the Wild.
World-class documentary maker Peter Young lives near the Tāwharanui, so brought the open sanctuary into the series, and there we volunteers were, on the steep slopes of Slip Gully planting trees. TOSSI Treasurer, Kim Grove said to me, “Did you see us on that steep Slip Gully? We’ve got to get out of there before we frighten off our wonderful volunteer planters!” Fortunately this will be the last of four years of planting 70,000 trees in Slip Gully. Planting will be easier at Tāwharanui in future.

For the June planting we put out plants on the Friday, with blue skies and warm sun creating a warm little micro climate of its own in Slip Gully. By Sunday the wind had come around to the north-east and barrelled straight up the gully carrying cold showers. The last shower nearing lunchtime brought hail, so the gallant team of volunteers all had their backs to it to protect themselves, like cattle in a field without shelter. This gave us a jubilant excuse for pulling out, leaving the last plants for another day, and returning to the woolshed for the most welcome hot barbecue lunch.
Ravenous, cold volunteers can assure our volunteer cooks that those hash browns and sausages are the best ever!

A big thank you to all for helping out despite the steep slopes and inclement weather.

Next to Slip Gully is Possum Gully where a magnificent stand of original native bush remains, indicating what Slip Gully might once have been. Our plantings will take hundreds of years to replicate this original bush. We plant “To create the conditions for a forest to evolve,” says Auckland Council senior ranger, Matt Maitland. You can’t help but think how ridiculous it is that the steep slopes of Slip Gully were cleared for farming.
Auckland Council keeps up-to-date with all the available technology to try and keep one step ahead of the ever-determined pests. Extra funding has been secured exclusively for Tāwharanui pest control, much to the relief of
volunteers. Sadly other sanctuaries have also been coping with stoat incursions, so we are not alone with the war against these little killing machines.

The wildlife are doing their bit too! A very excited Karen Hoksbergen, TOSSI secretary, recently showed me Duvaucel’s gecko footprints marching across numerous tracking tunnel cards, indicating they were big and healthy.

One evening in Ecology Bush a very plump kiwi probed here and there alongside me for 20 minutes before ambling off into the undergrowth to find something more enticing. Sally Richardson, TOSSI events co-ordinator, tells me that the national call count for kiwi at Tāwharanui last year was the highest so far. In a south coast gully a secretive fernbird called, although unfortunately I never saw it. In Working Man’s wetland a pair of spotless crake were calling to each other. So the ground-dwelling birds are still there making Tāwharanui their home.

Introduced bird species are already displaying their breeding plumage at Tāwharanui, especially the cock pheasants as they strut about in the most resplendent outfits. They, like the pukeko, are abundant at Tāwharanui as they lay many eggs, having evolved in habitats with mammalian predators.

It is indeed heartening when one becomes aware that every little bit helps, and many are making that contribution. The Fight for the Wild documentary certainly gives us hope that we, as a nation of innovators, actually could make New Zealand predator free by 2050 in order to protect our unique wild life.