The following is an excerpt from Amanda Peart from Auckland Council Biosecurity, a request for our help……………...possibly too late for Queens Birthday weekend but do think about Labour Weekend…………..
Hi everyone,
I have to apologise for the lateness of this email. Some of you may have seen this from other sources, or on social media. The tramping club list somehow didn’t survive the copy and paste from my spreadsheet to email last time (pre-Easter).
As a lot of you already know, many of our native kauri trees are dying from kauri dieback disease and the only way to prevent the spread of this disease is by cleaning our shoes and equipment before and after visiting kauri forest.
Unfortunately compliance with our cleaning stations is still low, and we want to spread the word and help increase this, and increase our trees’ chance of survival.
Over the summer we had ambassadors stationed at some of our high use stations in the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park and they spoke to thousands of visitors to raise awareness.
We would like to extend this programme and have volunteers helping out at those stations, and others around Auckland, on upcoming holiday weekends –Queen’s Birthday (3-5 June) to start with, with Labour weekend (21-23 October) in the future. It would involve talking to visitors about kauri dieback disease and how it’s spread, how they can help and perhaps demonstrating cleaning methods on the station if necessary.
If you are staying in Auckland, and have a few hours spare on one of those weekends, please let us know. We will set you up with everything you need, including some identification as a volunteer for the kauri dieback project, some collateral to distribute and all the information you will need to answer queries. We will also hold a short health and safety briefing for those able to help out.
The slots would be about three hours long, (in the morning, or afternoon), from approximately 9.30am-12.30pm and then another slot 1pm – 4pm.
We would like to have people at the following stations in the Waitakere Ranges: Fairy Falls, Glen Esk, Kakamatua, Cascades, and Karamatura; some of our local west parks with cleaning stations and at some of our North Shore parks with cleaning stations (e.g. Le Roys Bush).
Please let me know if you are able to help, when you are free (including day and time), where you would prefer to volunteer, and if you would like to bring someone else with you on the day.
It can be weather dependent. If it is hosing down with rain for instance and you’d rather not be out there, just let us know, and we can swap your day.
Kind regards Amanda
021 026 33642