Last Saturday, A Rocha’s Auckland local group headed out to Matuku Link for some restoration work. Two key areas that the local group worked on are:

• In the nursery, the volunteers potted up about 150 delicate small plants. Some were small cutty sedges Cyperus ustulatus which grow in shallow wetlands. Most special were tiny Pittosporum cornifolium seedlings, a tough little shrub that is epiphytic, that is, it grows up in the crotches of large trees. In addition, the workers sowed onto sawdust seeds of a special cutty-grass sedge Gahnia pauciflora that is the preferred food of the rare and most beautiful native butterfly, the Forest Ringlet.

• Meanwhile out in the field, the other volunteers were efficiently planting out trays of sapling native trees such as tītoki, mapau, pūriri, tī kōuka (cabbage tree), nikau. They were interplanted among taller more established shrubs, using their shelter to protect them during their first summer. Interestingly, in one part where several years earlier A Rocha volunteers had planted quick-growing (and quick-dying) karamū bushes, they were able to replace them with large-growing toetoe grasses.

It was a joy in a small way to help restore a little of God’s damaged creation.

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Matuku Link is named after the endangered Matuku-hūrepo (Australasian bittern) which needs wetland to survive. There are an estimated 700 matuku left, with some living in Te Henga, Auckland’s largest mainland wetland. Matuku Link aims to restore and protect wetland habitat in West Auckland, linking several other conservation projects to create a safe corridor for native flora and fauna.