Kaikorai Stream Restoration Project
The Kaikorai Stream restoration project began in Nov 1996. In a few words, it was a sad ditch and the adjacent Shetland Street Reserve was covered in tall weeds. It was so overgrown that workers found a small cannabis plot overwhelmed by the weeds. And so the project was underway.
At first, the sites are cleaned up, weeds are cleared, rubbish picked up, and some foreign plants removed. Then natives appropriate to the area are planted. This improves stream quality, and recreates lost natural habitats (such as wetlands) for native birds, fish and insects. Wetland plants such as grasses and reeds are a means of natural pollution control. They act as filters cleaning the water of pollutants, and as a system of natural flood control.
The sites are landscaped, with the aim to create public spaces which are beautiful and can be enjoyed by the local communities through walkways, artworks, murals, and useful amenities which communities to use and develop. At one site, the Shetland St. Reserve (in the suburb of Kaikorai, near Balmacewan Intermediate), pest plants have been cleared, a park created featuring native tree plantings, walkways made, murals painted and created ponds, as well as planting native flax (amongst other plants) alongside the stream. Next to the reserve is the Shetland Street community organic gardens. The area looks positively transformed compared to the rest of the stream.
The project does have an aim of community self-management of our environment. The aim is to decrease the involvement of workers from the Dunedin Environment Centre Trust and encourage and increase the participation from locals over time, hopefully to the extent that locals look after their own ecosystem themselves. The project aims to be community based, with decisions made over what is to be planted, and the landscaping process to be a collaborative effort between all stakeholders. It aims to provide a working model, a living example, of community self-management that can applied elsewhere in Aotearoa.
The work undertaken by the Centre is in general co-operative and self-chosen.
The project is a mere beginning in terms of sustainable eco-self-management to see the ideal of community self-management being carried out. Shetland Street Reserve near Kaikorai Stream as of Sept 2005 is nearing completion. Some infill planting is planned later this spring. Currently consultation is underway with the local community about how to improve the Kaikorai Common's ecological and aesthetic value.
If you are interested further details about the project, or want to get involved, contact the Dunedin Environment Centre Trust.
At first, the sites are cleaned up, weeds are cleared, rubbish picked up, and some foreign plants removed. Then natives appropriate to the area are planted. This improves stream quality, and recreates lost natural habitats (such as wetlands) for native birds, fish and insects. Wetland plants such as grasses and reeds are a means of natural pollution control. They act as filters cleaning the water of pollutants, and as a system of natural flood control.
The sites are landscaped, with the aim to create public spaces which are beautiful and can be enjoyed by the local communities through walkways, artworks, murals, and useful amenities which communities to use and develop. At one site, the Shetland St. Reserve (in the suburb of Kaikorai, near Balmacewan Intermediate), pest plants have been cleared, a park created featuring native tree plantings, walkways made, murals painted and created ponds, as well as planting native flax (amongst other plants) alongside the stream. Next to the reserve is the Shetland Street community organic gardens. The area looks positively transformed compared to the rest of the stream.
The project does have an aim of community self-management of our environment. The aim is to decrease the involvement of workers from the Dunedin Environment Centre Trust and encourage and increase the participation from locals over time, hopefully to the extent that locals look after their own ecosystem themselves. The project aims to be community based, with decisions made over what is to be planted, and the landscaping process to be a collaborative effort between all stakeholders. It aims to provide a working model, a living example, of community self-management that can applied elsewhere in Aotearoa.
The work undertaken by the Centre is in general co-operative and self-chosen.
The project is a mere beginning in terms of sustainable eco-self-management to see the ideal of community self-management being carried out. Shetland Street Reserve near Kaikorai Stream as of Sept 2005 is nearing completion. Some infill planting is planned later this spring. Currently consultation is underway with the local community about how to improve the Kaikorai Common's ecological and aesthetic value.
If you are interested further details about the project, or want to get involved, contact the Dunedin Environment Centre Trust.
