Since 2006, the vision of the North-West Wildlink has been to connect nature and communities so that the link overflows with native birds. Kererū, kākā, ruru, kingfisher, shining cuckoo, grey warbler, fantail, tomtit, silvereye, tui, and bellbird are among the native forest birds for whom this green corridor provides additional food sources and dispersal opportunities. While some of these birds are strong fliers, such as the shining cuckoo, kereru and bellbird, smaller forest birds such as the fantail, grey warbler and North Island robin will seek patches of tree cover to disperse. Experimental work on North Island robins shows that they are reluctant even to cross 500 metres of open country to the next forest patch. Robins from the Ark in the Park have dispersed as far as Huia, but that has been through continuous forest.
Once islands like Tiritiri Matangi were freed of predatory mammals, birds have thrived, and we have seen the beginnings of the birdlife overflowing into suburbia. A study of colour-banded tūī in Birkenhead some years ago showed that the same birds were also visiting Tiritiri Matangi. Every year, usually in the spring, we see kaka in suburban Auckland that have presumably come from the Barrier Islands. Just recently bellbirds have turned up in Devonport. These birds have almost certainly crossed from Rangitoto/Motutapu, where bellbirds are increasing following the eradication of pest mammals from the islands.
An Aotearoa teeming with bird life can only be realised in the absence of predators, which are estimated to kill around 25 million native birds every year. Rats, stoats, and possums are an ecological scourge ravaging our native wildlife by night and so New Zealand has drawn a line in the sand with the ambitious Predator Free 2050 initiative, its goal being to rid New Zealand of the most damaging introduced predators that threaten our nation’s natural taonga.
On the western front, the community had been working for many years prior to increase biodiversity in the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area. The ranges, its foothills and coasts comprise an area of 27,700 ha of public and private land. This area is known to local Māori as Te Wao Nui o Tiriwa (The Great Forest of Tiriwa). The highest point in the Waitākere Ranges known as Te Toiokawharu, is situated in the southern part of the ranges, about 3km north-east of Huia.
In its entirety, the land is of local, regional, and national significance and as such protected by the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act 2008. Its heritage features include ecosystems, iconic landscapes and landforms such as the rugged black sand surf beaches, native forest, much of which is regenerating since extensive logging and farming in the mid-late 19th and 20th centuries, and taonga such as Karekare Falls, Fairy Falls and Kitekite Falls, its cultural heritage, regional park and water catchment and supply system encompassing five dams supplying 20% of Auckland’s water needs. The Act protects the area to ensure the subservience of the built environment to the area’s natural and rural landscape.
In 2015, the Waitākere Ranges Local Board commissioned Koru Biosecurity Management to develop a Waitākere Ranges Strategic Weed Management Plan for the heritage area. The plan emphasised coordinated community involvement and one of the recommendations was the provision of a coordinator to assist and support volunteer pest plant control efforts in the Waitākere Ranges Heritage area. While this was a start, it was not until 2017 that a Pest Free Waitākere Ranges group began meeting, talking through issues like strategic direction and including pest animals as well as plants in the planning. In 2019 a Strategic Plan was adopted, and the Pest Free Waitākere Ranges Alliance was born, though not legally constituted and without a formal membership. It was decided that its role was to facilitate and support the 70 plus networks and groups restoring native biodiversity in the heritage area, and with funding secured from the Waitākere Ranges Local Boardand EcoMatters providing the legal framework as an umbrella organization for the Alliance, a coordinator was appointed in early 2020.
The next steps for the Alliance is to establish a mapped area of activity, which will expose any gaps and better enable a plan to up the ante on both predators and weeds.
The results of the work of thousands of volunteers across the North-West Wildlink are starting to be seen, and the vision of native birds filling suburbia is within reach.
