Our Wetland Education Programme for local low decile primary schools, is a huge success with over 1500 children a year visiting Matuku Link. Our incredible educators teach them to love wetlands and appreciate the bush, nature and the natural environment while doing a full day of hands-on science. Identifying macro-invertebrates, comparing and contrasting the water from a pond and a stream, testing for water clarity and admiring the size and lifecycle of our local tuna kuwharuwharu (long finned eels). They might spot a rare pateke, or a piwakawaka will join their session on bird calls and identification. With their newly learned skills of using the binoculars, they read bird bands and discuss the use of identifying different birds.

Delivery of this programme is only possible with the funding of the Mazda Foundation (towards the wages of our educator) and many smaller funders like Auckland Council, the Waitakere Ranges Local Board and The Trusts West. In this challenging funding climate, we can’t rely on these funding streams, so we are looking for 100 people, friends of Matuku Link, to forgo one coffee a week for a year and donate that $5 per week to us. Donate here.

If this sounds like you, please consider this proposal and visit our site to donate: www.matukulink.org.nz/support-us. We’re a charitable trust so all donations over $5 are tax deductible. For questions or other options, please contact me at hello@matukulink.org.nz Or contact one of our trustees to discuss: John Sumich, John Staniland, Chad Wilkie or Dale Bainbridge.

Thank you sincerely for your support, Annalily van den Broeke – 0212207136.

Best photos by Jonathan Longstaff: Te Hononga Akoranga COMET , others taken by staff & volunteers

The deputy principal of our local Henderson North school brought a group of his teaching team out to Matuku Link. They were impressed with what we could offer and we were impressed by their enthousiasm. Together we wrote a funding application for WeSteam funding through COMET, which was accepted! This made it possible to do more than just host their students at Matuku Link – we also took our science based wetland project to their school! Their teaching team delivered seven topics, Leah, Rebecca and myself did another three, on topics like fresh water, birds (endemic, native and introduced), plants and weeds, pests, wetland threats, eels…. The students visited each ‘station’ and had twenty minutes with each of the ten topics, mostly doing experiments or other hands-on activities. 

We’re super stoked we are able to deliver this, as it fit all our criteria: a local school, a group of passionate teachers extending their knowledge, reaching enthusiastic students who otherwise might not get out to Matuku Link, to a forest or wetland, showing science is fun and exciting and has real-life benefits. The teachers will be preparing their students this week for their visit (per class) over the next three weeks. 

Unfortunately we can only do this when we receive funding… if you have ideas on how to extend this program to other schools, through sponsorship or other methods, please get in touch with our educator Leah Nielsen at schools@matukulink.org.nz.

We love seeing the next generation of kaitiaki super engaged with science and nature, one of the four aims of our trust along with restoration, protection and inspiration!

Annalily & the trustees of Matuku Link. 

When we started the Matuku Link school holiday program, we didn’t think it would be so successful so quickly: last week’s series was fully booked almost every day, with most of the children wanting to return the next day… because what’s not do love: making friends while building huts, feeding eels, going on a scavenger hunt for insects, matching colors in nature, harakeke flower weaving, finding leaf shapes, making kawakawa tea, getting muddy, wet and tired… we’re pretty certain the parents appreciated the latter 🙂

All of this coordinated and led by our amazing educators Leah and Rebecca, assisted by volunteers Josh, Rosemary and Dot this week. We’d love to run this program during all the weeks of the school holiday, however that would only work with a couple more volunteers to help out and make it fun. If this is something you’d like to know more about, or have some time to help with, please contact Leah on schools@matukulink.org.nz

Ka kite anō! Annalily

Thanks to the networking skills of our volunteer Rebecca, young students who forgot their jackets will now stay dry during our Wetland Education Program. And with the weather we had, that is definitely a bonus!

Rebecca approached her friend at Barfoot & Thompson Kumeu, who generously supplied these colourful rain jackets. Thank you so much! It’s so great to get local business support for our conservation and education projects. Not only does it saves dollars we worked hard to fundraise for, it also confirms what we do is supported by others. We could not have gotten to this point, with a bridge, boardwalks, an educator employed etcetera without the generosity of businesses – from large ones like Alsco, Ricoh and Speights to smaller ones who donated materials or gave their experience or time for free – tradies, lawyers and engineers amongst them.

THANK YOU!!!

And very cheekily: we’re also still on the lookout for a sponsor for gum boots… 🙂

Do you love the outdoors? Have you always wanted to spend a day discovering everything a wetland has to offer? Matuku Link is excited to invite children aged 7-12 to our inaugural Holiday Programme Day on the 12th October! You will have a great time exploring and learning from the wetland and forest, discovering some of New Zealand’s native and endemic species, and getting hands on and creative in an outdoor setting. You’ll get to feed our eels, meet Bruce the Pāteke and learn the secrets of the critters in our waterways! 

Our holiday programme day will run from 9am – 3pm on Wednesday 12 October. To book a spot or for more information, email schools@matukulink.org.nz

We look forward to exploring with you! – Leah 

Do you love the outdoors? Have you always wanted to spend a day discovering everything a wetland has to offer? Matuku Link is excited to invite children aged 7-13 to our Holiday Programme in January! You will have a great time exploring and learning from the wetland and forest, discovering some of New Zealand’s native and endemic species, and getting hands on and creative in an outdoor setting. You’ll get to feed our eels, meet Bruce the Pāteke and learn the secrets of the critters in our waterways. Small groups, lots of time for nature play, to explore our native forest, make discoveries with our experts on bugs, birds, plants and fish and become our wetland kaitiaki.  

Our holiday programme day will run from 9am – 3pm every day with a different theme from Monday 23rd January to Friday 27th of January 2023. To book a spot for $50 a day or for more information on www.matukulink.org.nz/shop or email schools@matukulink.org.nz

We look forward to exploring with you! – Leah 

Kia ora!

I’m Leah Nielsen and I’m excited to be joining Matuku Link as the new educator. I come from a teaching background, having taught primary school in both New Zealand and the UK, but my passion is the environment and wildlife. I love learning about the natural world and am excited to learn more at Matuku Link and pass on some of that knowledge.

This year I took a break from classroom teaching and have been working on the Papakura Stream Restoration Project, restoring the stream banks and planting native trees. I am looking forward to getting to know the Matuku Link community!

You can contact me on schools@matukulink.org.nz or come out to Matuku Link to say hello 🙂

Nga mihi, Leah

A great team of students from Kelston Intermediate came out to Matuku Link to experience our very first Wetland Education Program session – Te kaupapa rohe koreporepo.

This all boys team lead by kaiako John and his colleagues were super engaged with all we shared with them: from Brian Ireland’s introduction of the most important te reo words of the day and acknowledging Te Kawerau A Maki, mana whenua of this region, to John Stanilands’ talk about kahikatea (and pointing out that these trees are either boys or girls!) to their exercises to identify macroinvertebrates, lead by Hohepa Waenga. All our education volunteers helped them to compare the quality of the water based on the temperature, clarity and inhabitants – a hands-on activity for all of them. The afternoon focused on birds – how to read bird bands (from left to right, top to bottom), identify birds by their song, and use the binoculars to spot (stuffed) birds with their color bands.

It was a great day and I’m not sure who enjoyed it more: the students and their teachers, or our trustees who saw the final part of our Matuku Link vision come to fruition!

We’ve got a couple more schools booked in for the coming weeks – let us know if you’re interested to join our team of volunteers, or if you are interested to bring your school group out here for a full immersion Wetland program.

Nga mihi, Annalily (manager) & Leah (educator) – schools@matukulink.org.nz

Photos taken by several volunteers – thank you!