Our places: Ladino wetland
Image: Donna Farhi
Context and purpose of the project
Thousands of small ephemeral creeks and streams once dotted the Canterbury Plains. While most were part of the catchment of braided rivers, some appeared as springs, flowed for a few kilometres, and then seemingly disappeared (Fig. 3). But they didn’t vanish. Instead, they were hydrologically-linked through groundwater, aquifers, and wetlands, and provided a multitude of ecosystems services: habitats for wildlife, filtering out pollutants, recycling nutrients, and storing carbon in their peaty soils.
When Europeans arrived and cleared the land for farming, these small, often ephemeral streams were often regarded as nuisance bogs. Many were drained, releasing the carbon in their soils into the atmosphere, while native plants were ripped out and replaced with grass, creating biologically barren landscapes that could support only domesticated livestock. Some 90% of Aotearoa’s wetlands have been destroyed in the last 150 years.
Today, they are our rarest and most at-risk ecosystems. Retaining every single wetland that remains is by far the best outcome for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and value for money.
When the current owner bought this property in 2002, she realised that, while she couldn’t protect an existing wetland, she had been presented with an opportunity to breath life back into one, and play a small part in helping to reverse the declining ecological health of Cantebury’s waterways.
Just five years after the project began, the wetland was filled with mature native plants and teeming with native birdlife (Figs. 1-2).
The goal now is to continue to restore the riparian margins along the remainder of the stream and encourage adjacent landowners to create a connected wildlife corridor (Figs. 4-5).
Top image: fast growing willows provide shade for endemic freshwater species including eels. Once native trees are mature, the willows will be removed. In the interim, sheep promptly remove any willow shoots outside the fenced riparan area.
Key Actions
Advice: One of the best pieces of advice was from a local farmer with a horticulture degree, which was not to plant more than you can protect. That is, plant only the area of land that you know you can protect, weed, water (in drought situations), and otherwise tend for the first 3 years. Only begin another block when native plants (Fig. 6) are fully established.
Weeding: Do not underestimate the amount of time and energy it will take to defend plantings from invasive weeds in those first few years. We placed tires around many of our plantings so we can find them and protect them from sprays or a weed-whacker.
Augurs: For our third corridor planting, we borrowed a local farmer’s drilling augur. This made a huge difference to the speed and efficiency of planting and reduced the back-breaking labour of digging holes. We managed to plant in one day what would usually take us three days. We worked in relays: augur worker first, planter following, and a third person laying plant protectors and bamboo supports. An augur also softens, loosens, and breaks the surrounding ground very effectively, aerating it.
Weed mats: vastly reduce weed burden. Having used plastic weed mat, we are now experimenting with a wool underlay sold through Bremworth Carpet /Trade Me. This is much easier to work with and will eventually compost once plants are mature.
Time of year: While autumn and spring are traditionally the best times to plant, consider the conditions of that season. If you are having a very dry spring with a forecast for a dry summer, probably be best to wait until after autumn rains to plant.
Fencing: For the first part of the project (restore the pond area) rather than fencing it off first, we kept stock out of the paddock during preparations and planting. This because once fencing is in, access is difficult without a gate. For our third corridor planting, as we had a large gate into that area, we fenced it off prior to bringing in an earth-mover to deepen the stream channel (this was to prevent excessive overflow of water damaging the new plantings).
Trapping/pest control: Our main challenges are hares. They can destroy tree plantings overnight with a nip of slender saplings. We shoot hares whenever possible, but you can also deter them by painting tree stems with a mixture of diluted acrylic paint and egg. They hate the smell and taste of animal protein. We trap feral cats and stoats in a live trap and then shoot them humanely and use kill traps for possums. Our Hungarian Vizsla (dog) is doing a good job of finding hedgehogs (which we kill humanely) and digging up rabbit burrows and killing young rabbits.
2016: applied for and granted funds from Environment Canterbury Biodiversity funding to extend riparian planting east of the pond to the boundary fence (Figs. 4-5). Having a planting and maintenance plan and budget for fencing, eco-sourced plants, and maintenance is essential when applying for funding.
How this helps mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change
- Enhancing wetland habitats by trapping predators and removing pest mammals creates a hub from which native plants can expand into surrounding areas.
- This helps restore essential ecosystem services including nutrient recycling, seed dispersal, pollination, and long-term carbon sequestration in native shrubs and peaty wetlands soils.
- With flooding expected to increase as the climate warms, wetlands and riparian plants act as sediment traps, help to maintain the health of waterways downstream, and supporting mahinga kai.
- Involving neighbours and friends to restore the wetland and stream reinforces the growing message that everyone can take action to restore our lost ecosystems and help mitigate the impacts of climate change.
