Project Title: Manawatu River tree planting

Project Description:

PLEASE NOTE – We are stoked to say we now have match funding of $2000 for this project – so your contribution to this project will be doubled! Until the $2000 is reached. That means we can get $4000 in contribution for the project! 

Hi! We’re the Poulton family – made up of myself – John, my wife Marina, and our 3 daughters Milly, Isobel, and Zari.

I’m a farmer, I grew up farming on my parent’s farm in the Horowhenua in the foothills of the Tararua ranges, and we swam in the streams on the farm all the time. We loved it, it was just what we did.

We’ve been on our sheep and beef farm near Dannevirke for 10 years and our three daughters love swimming in the streams here too. But we can’t take it for granted anymore that they will be able to keep swimming in the streams here – or that their children will be able to, because the water isn’t as clean as it used to be. It’s more polluted and we know it could get more polluted in the future if we don’t do something about it now.

Our stream also runs into the Manawatu River about halfway down our farm – we know the Manawatu has huge water quality issues and that what we do on our farm impacts the whole catchment. The Manawatu River is the life blood of the entire catchment and is important as a longfin eel breeding area.

Our goal is to make sure we’re having a positive impact on the catchment downstream of us, as well as on our own farm, to protect the health of the river and ensure that our waterways are safe for swimming and drinking, and for fish and insects too.

We’ve done a lot of work on the farm already – we work with council advisors to make sure we do the right things in terms of use of fertilisers and anything else that could end up in the stream; we’ve put in hundreds of thousands of dollars of fencing to keep stock out of the streams; and have been working with QEII National Trust to covenant 5.2 hectares of bush to protect it long term.

The bush block is on steep opposing faces and bluffs of the tributary to the Manawatu River that runs through our farm. The area has forest of Kahikatea, Totara, Matai, Tawa and Kowhai and regenerating Manuka. But wide strips along the banks of the river are bare and have been grazed by stock for many years meaning that natural regeneration of the bush is unlikely or would be incredibly slow.

The next challenge we’re taking on is planting up the stream banks with native bush. The plan is to plant around 3700 trees along 1250m of stream bank with a width of about 5m all the way along.

We’ll be preparing the area before we plant (weed control); planting the trees; and committing to maintain them in the long term, especially in the first few years when the seedlings need to establish themselves and grow strong.

It’s going to cost about $44,000 to cover the cost of buying the trees and that’s where you come in!

Please get behind us and cleaning up the Manawatu River by donating a metre of stream bank planting today. One metre of tree planting costs $35.

Once we’ve raised the funds to buy the trees we can get to work this winter getting them planted and thriving.

This isn’t just about our farm through, we are part of Million Metres – a national project to fund and plant a million metres of stream bank around the country and make a really tangible impact on water quality and the life in and along our rivers.

Thank-you for any donation you can contribute to this environmental restoration project, we really appreciate your support!

We’ll keep you updated with how the project is going and with any opportunities to get on the farm and see the project you have contributed to!