Bay Harbour: February 21, 2024

Bay Harbour News Wednesday February 21 2024
10
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Bringing life back to neglected park
Community groups
are at the forefront of
the redevelopment
of Barnett Park.
Reporter Dylan Smits
explored the park
with regreening group
volunteers Sue Cooke
and Cynthia Roberts
VISTA: Regreening group volunteers Sue Cooke, on the left, and Cynthia Roberts, on the right, have the long-term goal of
planting enough trees in the park to cover the walking tracks with a native canopy.
PHOTOS: DYLAN SMITS
OPEN: Both sides of the Barnett Park Cave Loop Track has been open to the public since December including the staircase
up to the scenic Paratu cave which overlooks the valley. Right – regreening group volunteers encourage park visitors
to use the filled milk bottles to water the newly planted trees.
REDCLIFFS residents Sue
Cooke and Cynthia Roberts have
been volunteers in the Te Awa
Kura Barnett Park regreening
group since the organisation’s
founding in early 2021.
“It’s been an area that’s been
hugely neglected post earthquakes,”
said Roberts. “We got
together and said ‘this not good
enough.’ We want those tracks
reopened, we want the weeds
gone and we want to restore this
valley.”
Alongside the city council’s
draft development plan, the regreening
group has the long term
goal of planting large sections of
native trees in the park and creating
an attractive environment
for native birds.
“We’ve got this vision of being
able to walk from the sea up to
the summit under a canopy, that
we’ve got kererū flying, we’ve got
bellbirds, that we’ve got the return
of quite a few of the species
that are now absent from this
valley,” said Roberts.
When the planted native trees
grow tall enough, the volunteers
hope species like tui and kererū
are attracted to the area in addition
to providing shade on the
walking tracks.
The group planted 600 trees on
the eastern side of the track in
2023 and 400 on the western side
in 2022.
Barnett Park’s main Cave
Loop Track was closed after the
earthquakes due to the risk of
rockfall.
The city council cleared the
eastern side of the track which
was fully reopened in October
alongside the newly constructed
stairs leading to the scenic Paratu
cave.
The western side of the loop
track was cleared and then
reopened in December after rock
blasting by city council contractors
helped to reduce rockfall
risk from earthquakes.
Roberts said the volunteers
have had good collaboration
with the city council park rangers
in their joint efforts to reopen
the loop track and speed up
development projects.
“I think the council could see
how much effort we were putting
in and took notice,” said Roberts.
The park has attracted more
visitors and social media attention
since the full reopening,
said Cooke.
The volunteers have established
a water station where they
encourage users of the track to
take the available milk bottles to
water newly planted trees.
Cooke said regreening group
volunteers have spent thousands
of hours over the past two years
removing pest plants like boneseed,
helping to make way for
more native bush.
“Banana passionfruit is a particularly
vicious strangling weed
that we’ve been removing,” said
Roberts.
Volunteers in the regreening
group mostly come from the
surrounding area with some also
from Christchurch.
“They’re at a time in their life
when they want to give back and
they’re probably more interested
in the bigger picture, leaving a
legacy, rather than just money,”
said Cooke.
She credits several other
groups for improvements at the
park including Predator Free
Redcliffs and the Eastenders
volunteers.
“We’re all working together
really. We want to help get
much more reinvigorated native
vegetation coming back.” said
John Cook from Predator Free
Redcliffs.
The trapping group is a small
team of six volunteers who
have set about 30 predator traps
throughout the park so far.
They were active in the park
before the regreening group was
SEEDING: Te Awa Kura Barnett Park group volunteers
have spent many hours planting about 1000 trees
throughout the valley. Predator Free Redcliffs volunteer
John Cook laying traps in the park.
created, but the trappers’ attention
to the area has increased
since.
Predator Free also started
laying more traps further up the
valley once the city council and
regreening group began work to
open the loop track and plant in
the valley.
“Now the trappers are focused
on supporting what’s happening
with the plantings by getting rid
of all the possums and the mice
and the rats. With the lack of
pests, more bird life will come in
as well,” said Cook.
Predator Free has been using
test traps to locate the best spots
for trapping different pests in the
valley.
“You can confirm what different
pest there are, and where
they are, based on their teeth
marks.”
During 2023 Barnett Park
traps exterminated 24 possums,
17 rats, seven weasels, three
hedgehogs, one ferret, and many
mice.
The Eastenders is a walking
club and subgroup of the Summit
Road Society. They also volunteer
building and maintaining
tracks throughout the Port Hills.
Secretary Graeme Paltridge
said the group built the drains
on the eastern side of the loop
track and maintains them on
annual visits which helps prevent
flooding or silt build up in the
new planting areas.
“We clear it all up and make it
all presentable again.”
He is impressed with the progress
the regreening group and
predator free have made.
“They’re doing a damn great
job.”
Going forward, Roberts said
she hopes more walkers, rock
climbers and other visitors come
take advantage of improvements
at the park as the restoration
continues.