Restoring Coromandel's Native Ecosystems: Our Environmental Journey with Waikato Regional Council Support

The Northern Coromandel Peninsula is a place of extraordinary natural beauty and ecological significance. Home to rare native flora and fauna, including threatened species like the kākā and Coromandel brown kiwi, this landscape holds immense biodiversity value for the wider Waikato region. Yet, like many natural areas across New Zealand, it faces significant pressures from invasive species that threaten to disrupt the delicate balance of native ecosystems.

This is precisely why The Colville Project Trust is deeply grateful to Waikato Regional Council for their support through the Environmental Initiatives Fund (EIF), which has enabled us to undertake comprehensive ecological restoration work across our 35-hectare site at 89 Wharf Road, Colville.

When we began our restoration journey, we knew the scale of the challenge.

Our ecological assessment by Richard Webster of Remnant Restorations, identified numerous invasive weed species threatening the recovery of native plant communities and the habitat they provide for native birds and other wildlife. Species such as moth plant, kahili ginger, wilding pine, and Mexican devil had become established across riparian areas, wetland margins, and forest canopy spaces.

Without intervention, these invasive species would continue their relentless spread, further degrading the natural values that make Colville such a special place.

Thanks to the Waikato Regional Council's Environmental Initiatives Fund's support over 2024 and 2025, The Colville Project has been able to engage professional restoration expertise through Remnant Restoration to tackle this challenge systematically.

Between November 2024 and January 2025, an impressive 389 hours of environmental weed control work was completed specifically targeting priority invasive species. This wasn't simply random weed removal; rather, it was carefully planned, scientifically informed ecological restoration grounded in detailed assessment and restoration recommendations prepared for our site.

The scope of work we've undertaken demonstrates the power of targeted intervention. Our teams focused on seedbank control and follow-up treatments for moth plant, working methodically through outlier infestations along northern boundaries, tributaries, and beneath macrocarpa trees.

We implemented comprehensive control of kahili ginger, particularly within riparian zones and stream margins where this invasive species poses particular threats to native wetland communities.

Wilding pine control work has been critical—24 hours of focused effort removing conifers that were actively suppressing the recovery of native taonga such as kauri and tānekaha. And through wetland enhancement work totalling 123 hours, we've targeted invasive species threatening freshwater systems, including arum lily, montbretia, pampas grass, and woolly nightshade.

What makes this project particularly special is the collaborative community spirit it has generated. Beyond the professional contractor work enabled by the EIF funding, volunteer community members have participated in restoration activities, particularly through a working bee focused on kahili ginger removal in December 2024.

This isn't top-down conservation—it's community-led environmental stewardship, where local residents take active ownership of their landscape's ecological future. The partnership approach extends to our ongoing engagement with mana whenua, ensuring that cultural protocols are respected and that restoration work honours the cultural significance of this place.

We've also worked collaboratively with neighbouring properties to contain invasive species spread, demonstrating landscape-scale commitment to environmental protection.

The results are already visible.

Photographic documentation from our restoration work shows native plant communities beginning to recover in areas where invasive species have been controlled. Where once moth plant seedbanks threatened to dominate, we now see space for native regeneration. In riparian areas cleared of invasive weeds, native plants are responding. These outcomes align directly with the ecological assessment's recommendations and represent genuine progress toward the larger goal of restoring self-sustaining native ecosystems at our site.

The funding from Waikato Regional Council's Environmental Initiatives Fund has been transformative.

It provided the financial foundation necessary to engage specialist expertise, to think beyond purely volunteer-powered efforts, and to tackle restoration challenges at appropriate scale and intensity.

The Council's recognition that ecological restoration requires sustained, professional intervention - not just good intentions - demonstrates their genuine commitment to environmental enhancement across the Waikato region.

And there was a bonus for us! Waikato Regional Council kindly donated a preloved Kauri Foot Station which we promptly installed and made great use of.

The Colville Project team are looking forward to Year 2 - committed to build on this foundation.

We plan to enhance our monitoring protocols to better capture ecological outcomes, continuing our adaptive management approach, and expanding our community engagement efforts.

The Colville Project is grateful for partners like Waikato Regional Council who recognise that protecting the Waikato region's unique native biodiversity requires investment, expertise, and long-term commitment.