Te Kopahau Reserve
(Red Rocks)
ERA Ecology NZ Ltd developed a restoration plan for us for Te Kopahou Reserve on Wellington’s south coast, which Wellington City Council has incorporated into their greater reserve management plan.
The uncommon and hardy local dwarf kowhai was planted on the first planting day, held in September 2018, in pockets on the steep walls of a deep valley. These small groves will become a point for further endangered plant and animal species to re-establish, helped by ongoing predator control and weed eradication.
Conservation management of rare coastal vegetation in such a harsh environment is largely in its infancy, so there will be lessons to learn from this project which can then be applied to future work on the speargrass weevil and the Canterbury knobbled weevil.
