A Memorandum of Understanding for planting and redevelopment of the Half Mile Recreation Reserve at Alexandra has been reached between the Central Otago District Council and the Haehaeata Natural Heritage Trust.
The MOU allows the Clyde-based trust to source, propagate, and plant out over a five-year period.
The Council recently removed about 14 hectares of wilding conifer trees from the Half Mile reserve over the winter. The site is a recognised lizard and gecko habitat, which was protected through the felling operation. The reserve has several historical sites within it that link back the gold mining days of this area, and these will be protected, and their history highlighted during the redevelopment.
It is Council’s desire to enhance the lizard habitat and native biodiversity of the site. A draft redevelopment plan has been prepared by Council based on showcasing the unique Central Otago landscape. It takes a light planting approach with minimal amenity intervention so that the site would be retained as an open landscape like its surroundings and could be used for walking and other recreational activities.
Haehaeata is a charitable trust that runs a native plant nursery at the Clyde rail head. A team of volunteers and a paid nursery manager propagate native plants from locally sourced seed for community planting projects. Seed is gathered with permission from public and private landholders from the wider Central Otago area and the Trust will use the locally sourced plants for the ongoing redevelopment of the Half Mile site.
Council will hand over the replanting of the reserve to the Trust to enable it to undertake the required work and will continue to work in collaboration in providing infrastructure such as water, signage, pest control (herbicide and rabbit proof fenced plots), promotional information and other materials as required, such as mulch, stakes, guards, compost and fertiliser.
The planting plan is based on Council’s original planting proposal with the location of plants determined on preferred growing conditions, which may result in the final location and mix of plants varying a little from that plan.
Council will assume maintenance of the reserve plantings three years after any section has been completed.
The following planting programme has been agreed:
• Haehaeata Natural Heritage Trust will plant the first tranche of 500 plants (shrub and tree
mix) and 5,000 grasses in Autumn/Winter 2024.
• second tranche of 750 plants (shrub and
tree mix) in Autumn/Winter 2025
• third tranche of 1,000 plants (shrub and tree
mix) in Autumn/Winter 2026
• fourth tranche of 1,000 plants (shrub and
tree mix) in Autumn/Winter 2027
• plants fifth tranche of 1,000 plants (shrub and tree
mix) in Autumn/Winter 2028.
CODC Group Manager – Community Experience David Scoones looked forward to the seeing the partnership flourish.
“Originally, Council had budgeted (assuming it would have to be a commercial arrangement) for about 4,000 plantings in total on this reserve. However, working with Haehaeata we will be planting this number in the first year and about the same every year after that for five years. Each year we will review our progress together and depending on how we are tracking, the number of plantings could increase again.”
In a statement, the Trust said it was excited about the opportunity to reintroduce local native plant species to such a publicly accessible area.
“It is a fantastic opportunity for the community to learn more about our unique flora and experience the year round interest our plants can bring to the landscape along with the biodiversity benefits. It is a project that will take years to reach its full potential and we hope that the community will actively share this journey with us.”
