Image credit: Imogen Warren Photography.
Off to a flying start
In November 2016 the Matuku Reserve Trust was able to buy 37 hectares of bush and wetland, naming it “Matuku Link”, after an intensive fundraising campaign. Buying it ensured the safety of the wildlife and forms a vital connection by linking neighbouring eco-restoration projects Ark in the Park; Habitat te Henga and the Forest & Bird reserve Matuku. Over 90% of New Zealand’s wetlands have been drained or filled, yet on Auckland’s doorstep is Te Henga wetland, the largest wetland in the region.
Matuku Link, bordering the Te Henga wetland, is a large native forest block in Auckland’s Bethell’s valley. It is a home to rare wetland species such as our namesake matuku (australasian bittern), puweto (spotless crake), pateke (brown teal) as well as to native bats along the river. The kauri and the kahikatea are a home to many bush birds like kereru, fantail, tui, ruru, tomtits and recently even a rare robin was seen.
In the first three years hundreds of volunteers donated over 12,000 hours: planting and weeding over 10,000 trees, shrubs and grasses. We also built a nursery where we grow our next generation of eco-sourced plants. Together we created ponds and re-established streams, doing predator control and are working on the transformation of our barn into a Sustainable Wetland Education Center. More info about us here.
Hands-on volunteering
Our regular working bees are every Third Sunday of the month and we have irregular working bees during the week. Depending on the weather, tasks will be around weeding, planting, growing plants in the nursery, doing predator control or building work. More info here.
Please contact Annalily on matukulink@gmail.com with questions, or if you’d like to join us and it’s your first time out to Matuku Link. We’d love to welcome you here!
Helping out in other ways
Nothing is possible without our valued funders, donors and supporters. Matuku Reserve Trust is a charitable trust so any donation over $5 is tax deductible. Please consider becoming a supporter, more info here.
Thank you to our many generous sponsors and individuals who have helped us with in-kind or financial contributions!
Lion Team at Matuku Link
The first and last business planting group of 2020 - thanks to Covid we have had to cancel everyone else. But the team from Lion worked tremendously hard on their volunteer day to make up for that and planted hundreds of trees, shrubs and flaxes. It was right next to...
Fiftieth Fundraising Forest
What a great day to plant a 50th Forest for Anko's birthday! Beautiful weather (though a bit windy, look at my hair!), lovely company, great cakes... and we planted our 100 trees as well as some extra flaxes and grasses! Thank you to everyone, from all over the world,...
Sunny September
What a great turnout to enjoy our very sunny working bee in September! We had one group of volunteers in the nursery, one group protecting our plants with a thick layer of mulch, and another group busy with 'infill' planting: adding bigger trees where the nursery...
Contact us:
Secretary Annalily van den Broeke
021-2207136 or email us at matukulink@gmail.com..
Physical address:
111 Bethells Road, Te Henga, Auckland
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