Passion for planting natives

Planting natives on a 30 hectare Arapaoa Island block has become a passion for Toni Halliday.

With the help of Council’s Hill Country Erosion Programme, Toni, and her young neighbour Micaela Bowler, planted 500 natives this year including cordyline, mānuka, kānuka and totara.

Jointly funded by Council and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), the programme supports farmers, enabling them to combat erosion on marginal farmland.

The fund provides advice and financial support to landowners.

The Hallidays bought the property in Te Awaiti Bay in Tory Channel/Kura Te Au, in 2005, building a house there 10 years later.

Toni had links to the area as her father had been an engineer at the former whaling station in the 1950s and 60s.

The block was regenerating native having once been farmed and in 2022 the Hallidays fenced off previously grazed areas which had become prone to erosion.

“In heavy rain the creek would run brown with sediment,” she said. “Already we are noticing a difference with young plants popping up in the fenced off areas.”

Toni works closely with the Arapaoa Island Kiwi Trust which traps stoats and rats and has noticed an increase of native birds in recent years.

“Our philosophy is to leave the land in better condition than we found it and part of that was planting more trees to stop erosion and improve water quality,” she said.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Hill Country Erosion Programme, please contact Jenny Buck at jenny.buck@marlborough.govt.nz