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Selwyn Bush restoration plan

The volunteers at Pourewa Restoration Group are dedicated in our goal of transforming Selwyn Bush from a weed infested remnant forest littered with rubbish to a wonderful native bush sanctuary in the heart of Auckland City.

The majority of the restoration has been guided by our restoration plan prepared by Ecologist Melissa Marler in 2014 and funded by the Auckland City Council, see Restoration Plan for Selwyn Bush . The majority of work in the last 17 years has been in allowing the native plants that are there to thrive while gradually removing the exotic weeds. The ultimate aim like any bush restoration project is to create an area of bush with a dense canopy, so suppressing the weeds while also providing some anchoring of the terrain which is important in a valley with steep slopes.

Selwyn Bush project area

Selwyn Bush is split up into fifteen seperate management units (MU) . Each MU has it's own challenges. The Pourewa Restoration Group first concentrated the majority of it's resources into the top part of the project area which was the worst effected by weeds. We then started heading further into MU8 and then the other areas.

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A diverse environment

There are a very wide range of ecosystems in Selwyn Bush. As the area consists of a valley going from north east to south west there is a large contrast in the dry and warmer north facing slopes and the damp cooler south facing slopes. At the base of the valley is the main Selwyn Bush stream and at MU5 there is a flood plain which in the winter moves into a more wetland state where plants like swamp maire and kahikatea are thriving.

Challenges in this environment

The biggest environmental challenge to date on the project is the stability of the land. Like a lot of Auckland during the January 2023 storms we had a number of slips, the majority of which were on the south east slopes. Much of the slippage happened where there were none or only a few mature trees growing and reinforced to us the importance of growing more trees on the slopes to stabilise this land for the future. Of note was Kepa Bush which is close by and had no slips due to it being a more mature forest with large trees.

Removing the pests

The Pourewa Restoration Group are primarily involved in removing pest plants. There is also an independent Selwyn Bush trapping group who manage the animal pests in Selwyn Bush. Early on they were catching up to 10 possums and around 20 rats a month. Now they have brought down the pest numbers down to a few possums and around 5 rats a month.

Another significant reduction to the animal pest numbers in the valley started when the community trapping organisation "The Eastern Bays Songbird Project" started to trap rats and possums through the Pourewa Valley. This reduced the numbers of pests coming into Selwyn Bush thereby helping the trapping project.

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