Oruawharo Medlands Ecovision

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Rodents caught

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Properties included

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Funds received for boardwalk

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Plants in the grow tunnel

Sep 17, 2024

Did you know....

We are so excited to be hearing and seeing kākāriki in Medlands. One individual spent hours in the community gardens recently, munching on calendula seeds. Mustard seeds were also quite the favourite a few months ago.

Sep 17, 2024

Pest Plant of the Month

Moth plant is found in the most impossible places on Aotea. The seed pods look a bit like a choko and contain 250-1000 dandelion-like fluffy seeds that can parachute over large distances in the wind. Moth plant is a pest plant all across NZ and it even has its own active volunteer group called S.T.A.M.P(Society Totally Against Moth Plant) who will remove any moth plant they come across. You can join their Facebook group to help out. For more information go to https://www.weedbusters.org.nz/what-are-weeds/weed-list/mothplant/

Mission: To work with the community to improve the habitats of native species by managing invasive pest species, restoring and nurturing the local dune, wetland and bush ecosystems.

Oruawharo Medlands Ecovision (OME) is a local community group with an environmental focus, based in Oruawharo Bay on Aotea / Great Barrier Island. We are a group of enthusiastic and passionate locals who think we have a lot to protect here in our neighbourhood, from pāteke/brown teal, matuku hūrepo/australasian bittern and mātātā/fern bird in the wetland and New Zealand dotterels on the beach and dunes to niho taniwha/chevron skinks along the creeks further inland. This is indeed a special piece of Aotea, you just have to stop and take notice!

We nurture and protect the taonga on our doorstep, and are in the planning stages of an expansion of our pest managed area, hoping to include many private properties as well as public land.

Every Wednesday from 9am, weather permitting, OME hosts weekly working bees, restoring a Department of Conservation wetland. We would love you to join us, contact us to find out where we are working from week to week.

How you can help us make a difference

We would love for you to be able to enjoy your local wetland up close. A path with a small section of boardwalk will transform the way we travel through this area and will make for a beautiful addition to our neighbourhood.
With your help we can make this happen.

Buy a plank or a whole section of this boardwalk, every dollar counts!

Thank you for your support!

Friends of OME

Become a Friend of OME with a regular donation.
Every dollar counts and we are grateful for your support.
Receive quarterly newsletters and be amongst the first in the know about project progress, updates and events.

Thank you for your support!

Monthly donation

Growing media

Seed raising and potting mix is a continued cost for raising our own plants in the grow tunnel and we go through a fair bit.

Thank you for your support!

Plant Protection

Planting the plants is only part of the work involved. Protecting them from pukeko, pigs, wind and sun is an added cost, but very worth it and necessary for plant survival.

Thank you for your support!

Plants

We aim to support the community nursery by buying plants from them that we are not able to grow. For this we need money to purchase plants they have grown.

Thank you for your support!

Access bridges

Some of our planting sites are hard and a bit treacherous to access. With your help we can upgrade them for better access.

Thank you for your support!

Pots, tools and other plant equipment

We buy what we can from Anamata, but sometimes there are pot sizes we need that they don’t have or their supply is low. Scoops, irrigation and much more is on the list of must haves to keep growing healthy, strong plants.

Thank you for your support!

Seabird monitoring

We have discovered a small colony of tākoketai/black petrels at the top of the Medlands basin. With the help of Auckland Council we would like to be able to monitor these burrows on a regular basis for breeding success, environmental challenges and general colony health. We can provide details for your chosen burrow and you can even name your own chick!

Thank you for your support!

Pest Control

OME's biggest body of work is the continuous rodent control programme. The traps in the dunes and wetlands are checked weekly by a paid person and we are now able to include private properties. If you would like your traps or bait stations checked on a regular basis get in touch to get your property set up to be included.
You can donate here to keep this program going, whether your property is included or not.

Thanks for your support!

Raoul Stuart

Chair person

Peter Jemmett

Deputy Chair

Prue Smith

Secretary

Lotte McIntyre

Coordinator

Isobel Edwards

Field manager

Maxine Barrowman

Fieldworker

John Ogden

Data analyst

Hemo Davis

Iwi representative

Annamarie Clough

Council liaison

Frances McClure

Grow tunnel queen

Jennifer Neads

Chair support

Kim Bannister

Tech advisor

Peggy Garlick

Shorebird patrol

Michelle Benson

H&S officer

Tony Lyon

Track magician

John Garlick

Proof reader

Margaret Jemmett

E-bike promoter

Andy Thomson

Handy man (muscle man)

Medlands Beach, Great Barrier Island / Aotea, New Zealand

Sign up here to receive our quarterly newsletters or get in touch to volunteer or for any other enquiries.

OME Property Owners Survey Analysis

A short survey has been distributed to the Oruawharo Bay property owners asking peoples opinions on extending our pest control in the area. You can read the full report of the analysis here.

OME Newsletters

You can find all of OME's online newsletters here

OME birds data

We keep all sort of bird related data. John Ogden is our resident data expert and he has kept data for longer than OME has existed. He has kindly shared a lot of this content and we have merged it here for everyone to be able to follow.

Aotea Bittern Survey 2023

Here you can read the full report on the Aotea Great Barrier Island Bittern Survey 2023, compiled by John Ogden.

Tākoketai (black petrel) survey

Joanna Sim and her trusty canines Rua and Miro did a search of the upper Medlands area looking for tākoketai (black petrel burrows) in January 2023. We are stoked to report there is a population of breeding birds on the DoC blocks at the top of the OME Phase Two project area.