Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 109
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
It has been a while since we caught up with progress at the dune lake and as autumn now starts to get a grip on our local terrain here are some updated images.
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| Bridge through Raumati Beach dune lake |
This is the bridge now starting to take shape over the Wharemauku track in Raumati Beach (the creek has been diverted). It gives an idea of the magnitude of the project. This was configured to rise 20 feet above the walkway, but the finished height with traffic above can now be seen to be considerably higher. This view looks east while the one below looks south and shows how the area has been remade through the expressway excavations.
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| E-way excavations looking south |
The vews below were taken before construction began, from near the same spot.
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| Raumati Beach dune lake before destruction |
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| Royal Spoonbill at Raumati Beach dune lake |
The great variety of native bird life that used to frequent this area has now disappeared, though a lot of effort has gone into presenting all this as an environmentally acceptable addition to the local area. Much of this is summarised on this chart displayed at the site.
Let’s make a couple of points about the factual quality of this spun blurb. The dune lake was 5-7 hectares in size, so the NZTA would need to be remaking 25-35 hectares, on this claim, to account for this wetland alone. Such obvious self-aggrandizement, throws a cloud over the rest of their claims. Of course it is good to see wetlands being re-established in this area, but none bear comparison to the richness and diversity of the one that has been destroyed. These are gentrified, landscaped ponds constructed for human visual pleasure and not to sustain wild animal lives.
The planting programme is a big plus for this area but, as we pointed out in a previous post, this is part of a highway beautification programme. It is not a sustained long term commitment to reestablishing the diversity of our native flora and fauna. Once the NZTA have left the district it will not be further managed, and as can be seen from previous plantings at Mackay’s Crossing, the results ten years down the track, have proved a very mixed blessing.
One of the more interesting results of the destruction of this dune lake, has been a subsequent increase of native wetland birds at the Queen Elizabeth Park Reserve about five kms south of Raumati Beach. Perhaps this may be the real beneficiary of areas in Kapiti where our native wetland birds have been harassed out of the area by the Expressway.
Our guest blogger this week, Ms Susie Niews, has decided on the Beatles as our backing track. And good on her for that. It's 8 Days a Week... with that wonderfully lilting way in which they reversed into this song... That must be Liverpudlian...And Susie knows all the words
Love you everyday girl
Always on my mind
One thing I can say girl
Love you all the time
So is she Liverpudlian too...? Answer in the next post.
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