Project Description:

UPDATE: DOUBLE YOUR DONATION!

We’ve received a very generous donation from Janet and Patrick Velvin who will match all new donations to this project up to $10,000. The Velvins live in the greater Wellington region and believe strongly in the importance of improving water quality and conservation.

Thank you so much Janet and Patrick for match funding the next $10,000 in donations received!

The Velvin’s donation comes to us via The Gift Trust, which is a philanthropic trust that helps people who want to make larger donations to charitable causes to do so more effectively.

Donate today and know that your contribution will be doubled.

Our Project

We are the Friends of Baring Head and we are back fundraising through Million Metres to support our long term restoration goal, to bring life back to the Wainuiomata!

In 2018 we reached out to our supporters to help us make a start with the planting programme at Baring Head. This campaign was a huge success and the funds raised helped us to plant 1,500 native plants and trees along the Wainuiomata River at Baring Head in 2018. Those have grown well, and transformed some of the river edge into the beginnings of a forest.

We then ran a second campaign which raised over $47,000 which helped us to plant 4,306 plants (somewhat fewer than planned due to unexpected levels of plant loss in the nurseries just before the planting season). That allowed us to plant one large area and one small area of terrace that is retired pasture. We have also started interplanting older plantings with larger trees, such as kahikatea and miro.

We have made huge progress towards our BIG goal to plant the whole river edge. The next two areas we will be tackling are also retired pasture in rank grass, so will need a large effort. To do that we are now raising an additional $42,000.

This will get 7,000 plants in the ground during the 2020 planting season.

We hope you will help us get there!

OUR VISION for Wainuiomata

We have already fenced off the river edges and wetlands, and in 2018 we started our planting programme. 

In 2019 we planted a further 4,306 plants with the incredible help of 233 volunteers. 

We are already seeing the difference this is making to the river, with less riverbank slumping, and new plantings starting to shade out the rank grass and weeds.

Over the next 10 years we’d like to restore all the lower reaches of the Wainuiomata River. This is a huge area and is one seventh of the main stem of the river!

Restoring this area will be an incredible example of the biodiversity and water quality outcomes that can be achieved in the rest of the valley.

WILL YOU HELP?

The restoration of the Wainuiomata River at Baring Head has had a brilliant start and the restoration in 2020 provides an opportunity to support the continuation of this great work. The area has exceptional ecological values and supports many threatened species. We hope you will donate to the project today. Any amount will help this large scale restoration project.

Please get in touch with the Friends of Baring Head Trust if you are interested in participating in a planting or restoration day. We’d like to provide an opportunity for people around the region to see the benefit of river restoration work and get to know their river.