Although we have officially said hello to autumn, we were recently treated to a summery day at an event in the Albrecht covenant, Ngahere o Atarau, located just outside of Nelson.  Our regional representative for Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough, Tom Stein worked with the landowners Simon and Robyn to organise the event.

The goal for the day was to bring people together and give them the opportunity to meet other people who have covenants so that they could compare notes and swap ideas or advise for their special protected areas. It was also a great opportunity to have future potential covenantors along to check out a stellar QEII protected open space covenant and inspire future protection. It was great to see neighbours among the guests and a big shout out to those who travelled, some from more than 135km away.

The Albrecht’s have two blocks of protected land on their property, with one accessible enough for everyone to wander through and enjoy. They have done a fair bit of planting of eco-sourced plants throughout riparian areas, areas cleared of weeds and the edges of the covenant. They were lucky to have 2,000 trees gifted to them for planting by the Nelson City Council.

Before showing attendees through the bush, Simon remarked that every time he goes into his protected pockets of land, he finds something new and that the bush continues to be full of surprises. During our walk through we spotted totara, matai, miro, tawa, black beech, kawakawa, native jasmine and kahikatea with the noises of thriving bird life guiding us throughout. The walk through the bush encouraged great conversations among guests about species identification, as well as pest and weed control methods.

Guests left the event armed with DOC’s ‘Predator Free 2050: A practical guide to trapping’ to take home to put into practice in their own backyards, open space covenants and communities. A downloadable copy of the guidebook is available on the DOC website here or physical copies can be requested from DOC visitor centers. The guidebook is a great tool to help us all work towards a goal of being one step closer to a predator free New Zealand by 2050.

A big thank you to Tom and his partner Liz for organising a great day, to Simon and Robyn for showing us their open space covenant and of course, to the attendees for coming along and having such great discussions.

Our team are continuing to work on planning events, if you have any ideas for an event or would like to host one at your covenant, get in touch with your regional representative.