From the Blog:
New Year, new bee
Thanks to all our volunteers at the first working bee of 2019! Five new volunteers (one a nine year old grandchild) and fifteen 'old hands' did a great job in clearing weeds, filling holes with gravel and stones, joyriding at the back of the trailer (don't...
Fire brigade to the rescue
A big "thank you" to the volunteers from the Bethells Valley Fire Brigade. Not only are they our neighbours, they also re-filled our water tank for the nursery, rescuing our plants from parching...and relieving our volunteers from carrying lots and lots of...
A year in numbers
2018 was an amazing year: we've been working on Matuku Link since January 2017 and it's unbelievable all we've accomplished in two years' time. Volunteer hours donated have been going up and up, from groups like Sustainable Coastlines helping out several...
Working Bees 2019
Working bees... they keep on giving work! Since January 2017 we've been having our working bees on every third Sunday of the month. For 2019 it won't be any different, our dates are: Sunday January 20th Sunday February 17th Sunday March 17th Sunday April...
Open for World Wetland Day
We'll celebrate World Wetland Day on Saturday 2nd February 2019 with our annual Open Day at Matuku Link - from 10 am to 3 pm. Stalls from other conservation organisations will display info on wetlands, birds and ecosystems, there will be food,...
EcoAdventurers
Ken Allington, teacher at Massey High, has been inspiring his students to give back to the community and specifically to the environment. Last year they came out to Ark in the Park to do the baitlines with us, this year that unfortunately wasn't possible...
Mile High Weeds
Sustainable Coastlines have been an amazing help to us this past year, and last Thursday wasn't any different. After the introduction on the question "why we kill things here in New Zealand" talk by John Sumich, they were handed 'sharks', little toothed...
Last working bee for 2018!
Our last working bee for 2018 was a Search and Rescue mission: some of the smaller plants, mainly manuka and kanuka planted by Ricoh in August, were getting smothered by dock. Armed with 'sharks', a very useful tool to slash through hands full of stems...
Donating to Matuku Link
Volunteers are amazing, winning prizes is cool but we still need hard cash to succeed with all of our plans. Especially after the theft of our tools from the barn (which were uninsured and uninsurable because it is still a building site), we could do with...
The Trusts visit our trust
The Portage and Waitakere Licencing Trusts did a large project two years ago, called "Million Dollar Mission". A handful of charitable organisations, schools and clubs were selected, and Matuku Link was one of the. Everyone could vote once a day for their...
Looking for a spotless crake
Getting up at 'ridiculous-o-clock' around 4.30 am on Saturday morning might not be everyone's cup of tea, but last week we had a full contingent of volunteers and two Auckland Zoo staff rearing to go and do some surveying! Our aim was to hear puweto, or...
Second Anniversary Party!
With around 40 others we celebrated the second anniversary of Matuku Link. Funders, friends, family, volunteers: we all shared salads and sausages, went for a walk and tried to spot the bats but found glowworms instead! Most of our guests were suitably...
Love your Place Awards
John Sumich was the deserving winner of the "Kahikatea" award, for an outstanding individual volunteer taking action on a local environmental issue. As John is tackling all the environmental issues in one, with his "From the Ridges to the Sea" idea, his...
Barn Building Bee
In between the days John Sumich is running his practice as doctor, he comes to Matuku Link to build the barn... and do loads of other jobs. The past weeks he has been using the materials supplied at 'mates rates' by Placemakers in Cook Street (thank you!)...
Mayoral Awards – we won!
We thought being a finalist for the 'Restoration' category of the inaugural Mayoral Conservation Awards was already a great effort and quite an achievement. The other finalists in this category were: Restoration of Mangemangeroa Reserve Tararata stream...
Ricoh – a new link
Ricoh was one of the funders earlier this year for our "Million Metres Streamside Restoration" project, and came last week to help us plant the trees that they helped fundraise for. For of us, Helen from Ricoh, Alaina and Georgie from Million Metres and Annalily from...
The Naked barn
The fibrolite as cladding might have been a good idea 40-odd years ago, it definitely isn't a good one now. Fibrolite contains asbestos fibers which could cause a specifically nasty kind of lung cancer. It usually takes a decade or more to develop, which...
August Working Bee
A great working bee was had on Sunday 19th of August, with such good weather people were stripping down to t-shirts and shorts! The non-native willows from the neighbours, shading out our planting areas, got a good haircut by Geoff, who had a great time...
Unitec Architecture designs
Last year Unitec students Landscape Design worked on a Master Plan for Matuku Link, and did a great job. It resulted in the trust forming clear ideas of "what goes where" in the landscape, and some ingenious solutions we could have never come up with on...
Track and trace
How do we know we're looking after a very special habitat? Because of the birds that use it! And how do we know who are here? Monitoring and careful observations work well, plus some clever new tools like audio and drone monitoring. Banded rail used to...
Rebuilding the barn
This time last year, The Trusts donated $5 for each vote for our project...which in our case added up to a whopping $85.125! It was an amazing start to our campaign to raise funds for our Sustainable Wetland Education Center. And one year on, we thought we...
Contact us:
Secretary Annalily van den Broeke
022 692 2016 or email us at hello@matukulink.org.nzÂ
Physical address:
111 Bethells Road, Te Henga, Auckland
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