Hello neighbours and supporters!
This newsletter is primarily for all the landowners involved with Project De-Vine who are mainly on the eastern side of Golden Bay and over the hill from Riwaka to Marahau. It is you as landowners and pest plant controllers that have made Project De-Vine possible. The newsletter is also for the various team members, DOC and TDC staff, sponsors and supporters near and far. If you have a neighbour in the funded groups without e-mail please pass this information along to him or her. Apologies if you have more than one copy e-mailed as many people are in several groups. With some 370 landowners in our control areas, properties change hands – if you have sold please contact us so we can update the address list and look for contact details of the new owners. Feel free to skim the contents if the details are not your cup of tea!
It has been a very busy year, with many exciting new projects and contacts being made. At the same time the on-going projects are still happening & receive regular attention to keep the pest vines from re-establishing. As a non-profit group under the umbrella of Forest and Bird, we have benefited massively from their local support, insurance cover, financial administration and more recently logistics support from their head office.
Project Summary
Project De-Vine started as a small local weed busting project, to help landowners, who were overwhelmed by invasive vines (Banana passion vine (BPV) and Old man’s beard (OMB)). This has grown into a project with Golden Bay wide, and recently around Abel Tasman National Park ambitions. It is achieving landscape scale pest vine control primarily in eastern Golden Bay; some 367 private landowners (4760ha) are included in the project from Wainui Bay to Rameka Creek. 2015 saw Project De-Vine partner with Project Janszoon and Fonterra to assess and offer pest vine control on properties along the boundary of Abel Tasman National Park (about 60 with control of other pest plants that might threaten the Park) and the Fonterra supply farms (102) respectively in Golden Bay. This is aided by a grant from Lotteries New Zealand for one year in 2015 and another two years starting now. Second year control work is starting on 40 of those properties and another 20 or so will be visited for the first time in 2017.
Other grants have been received in 2015 from:
- DOC Community Fund and Tasman District Council to partially cover the costs of an Operations Manager and set up an office for 3 years.
Sponsorship of our working bees has been generously provided by:
- Cut’n’Paste, who supply gel bottles for us to use and give out to landowners who attend working bees
- Nelson Building Society
- Motueka Community Board – to assist with the costs of running working bees in Riwaka valley