ASB Grant Award

A strategy of engaging industry, government agencies and community support has multiplied the impact of environmental protection work at Whangarei Heads. Bream Head Scenic Reserve.

Bream Head Conservation Trust (BHCT) has won financial support from the Northland Regional Council, the New Zealand Refining Company, ASB Community Trust and BNZ Save the Kiwi. It also has the confidence and scientific support of the Department of Conservation for its environmental restoration initiative. More than 100 volunteers are involved in protecting one of New Zealand’s ecological treasures and BHCT estimates the value of “contributions in kind” are in excess of $61,440 a year.

Bream Head is listed as a Protected Natural Area in the Northland Conservancy Conservation Management Strategy. Species present include North Island brown kiwi, North Island kaka, Northern NZ dotterel, pied shag, reef heron, red-billed gull, northern little blue penguin, long tailed bat and land snails.

A three year operating grant totalling $80,235 from ASB Community Trust will be used to fund the work of a ranger at the scenic reserve - an amount matched by the New Zealand Refining Company. This will allow BHCT to focus on ecological restoration and providing enhanced recreational and educational opportunities for the community. Last year BHCT also developed a five-year restoration and reintroduction plan and has applied for funding from the Ministry for the Environment.

Ranger Peter Mitchell maintains trap lines through the 174Ha core area and has kept rat tracking below 5%. Meanwhile, a trapping trial has been introduced to hold or reduce rodent numbers further, while reducing the amount of poison used.

On the coastal margin volunteers recently planted 4,000 trees. This was part of a well established annual planting programme that has resulted in more than 26,000 trees now planted. Other volunteers, trained by the ranger, have joined in the predator control effort by regularly trapping an area called Busby Head, successfully reducing rodent tracking from 87% to zero for the latest tracking round.

“We hope to use this as a demonstration to interested people and school groups of how trapping and poisoning can be undertaken successfully by volunteers,” says BHCT Chair Greg Innes.

“Community feedback on our work has been very encouraging,” Greg says. “We’ve had some real progress in controlling predators in the forest. A long-time visitor to the reserve recently commented that he had never heard so much birdsong, which was a real treat for him and our many other visitors.”