Our Changing World: Turning Taupō green

On 9 December 1982, a helicopter accident on Mt Ruapehu claimed five lives. The pilot and four National Park staff had been testing a new lighting system for night-time search and rescue.

Two years later, a living memorial, the Tongariro Natural History Society, was established in their honour. The society's aims were to care for, and connect people to, Tongariro National Park.

Today, more than 40 years later, the work of this group continues.

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The willows and the wetland

It's on the drive from Tūrangi to the Waimarino wetland that the problem becomes apparent.

"This is known as the willow corridor," says Kiri Te Wano, current CEO of the Tongariro Natural History Society, which today goes by Project Tongariro.

Both sides of this stretch of State Highway 1 are thick with a dense forest of grey willow.

"Absolute nightmare," says volunteer Shirley Potter. "And when the grey willow are seeding you're just floating through a cloud of seeds and you think, oh, how many of those are going to grow?"

Grey willow is known as an ecosystem transformer - when it invades an area it completely takes over, excluding native plants and the animals who need them. Cutting it back doesn't work - you need herbicide and, because of its ability to produce seeds and reinvade, you also need persistence and careful planning.

That's why ecologist Nick Singers is applying detailed precision to the operation.

In his home office in Tūrangi, aerial images stitched together from drone pictures are marked with the location of each willow tree in the wetland area they are trying to restore.

An area is assigned for treatment, either from aerial control via a helicopter or ground control, in which contractors hand-drill and inject herbicide into each tree stem. After the operation, the images are updated with the GPS marks from both teams on which plants have been poisoned. This means Nick can track what's done, as well as what's left to do and how much it will cost.

The wetland area is important for native wildlife. Its lagoons are home to some of New Zealand's most cryptic and threatened birds.

"The latest population count for bittern is that there might be 700 to 800 left in the entirety of New Zealand," says Nick. "And so, these areas are critical. And really what we've been doing is to try and maintain the habitat in a healthy state. So, they've got somewhere to feed, they've got somewhere to nest. And that's the best sort of management we can do."

Project Tongariro are working with DOC and local hapū to help conserve large wetland areas beside Lake Taupō. Not just battling willow, but also pest trapping and replanting.

But restoring wetlands is just one of the conservation efforts that the project is involved in.

Expanding out

The initial efforts of the society in the 1980s were focused on Tongariro National Park. The society was a network of people who loved the park and were prepared to chip in alongside park staff. It supported small restoration projects through an annual membership model and publishing books about the park.

Over the years, the society grew, became more financially stable and eventually employed dedicated staff, increasing the organisation's capacity to get involved in larger conservation efforts in the area.

Predator and weed control, planting projects, wilding pine removal, environmental education - today the society is involved in a wide range of projects and it employs nine staff in the region, spread between Raetihi, Tūrangi and Taupō.

In 2012, Greening Taupō was established under the Project Tongariro umbrella. Its goal is to enable urban restoration within the town. It was swiftly followed by the Kids Greening Taupō and then Predator Free Taupō projects.

Kiri Te Wano sees Project Tongariro's role today as providing opportunities for people to be involved, however they can, and having projects close to where people are is key to that.

"Our vision and goals do talk about Tongariro National Park and our hearts and minds are there, but we also talk about its environs," she says. "So, we took that to mean that we could also expand outwards a little bit. Doing restoration work next to small communities is quite difficult. So, we made the conscious decision to move closer to a larger community."

Turning Taupō Green

Rachel Thompson is a bit of a local celebrity around Taupō, getting spotted wherever she goes. Through her role as lead education coordinator with Kids Greening Taupō, she's known by most kids in the area. It currently has 46 schools and kindergartens that have restoration planting projects with it, either on their own grounds or on neighbouring council land.

She's also credited with the idea for 'Greening Taupō Day' - an annual festival in which local schools and community members are encouraged to dress in green, plant trees and get involved in different activities run by the 50 or so stall holders that also come along.

This year's effort, on a soggy 5 June, saw 2000 people show up and 3000 trees planted.

The focus of these planting projects is to create 'bird corridors' - green forested veins though Taupō to connect Mt Tauhara to the south with the Waikato river corridor and Wairakei Golf and Sanctuary to the north.

But a further goal is to educate and inspire the next generation of environmentalists, who are also bringing their whānau along with them, says Rachel.

"We've got over 100 children signed up to our extracurricular student leadership team, they all come along to the planting days with their families and they lead the planting days. They show everyone how to plant. They've brought the community on board with them."

Project Tongariro began as a way to remember local environmentalists, people who cared deeply about the place they lived and worked in. Over four decades later, this living memorial is still going strong, powered by those same kind of people, says Kiri. "People who are just so passionate about what they do and where they live ... I just feel so lucky working with these people and absorbing, you know, their knowledge."

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