Manaia Landcare

Community driven pest control on Manaia

Manaia Landcare is the latest project from BYK and the WHLF.

Pest control on the Manaia Ridge Scenic Reserve has been lagging behind the rest of the Whangarei Heads peninsula since DoC’s last operation in 2010. BYK realized that stoat, possum and rat populations on Manaia were growing, and compromising the biodiversity of the rest of Whangarei Heads.

Manaia is a defining landscape icon of the Peninsula, central in a network of community, NRC, and DoC environmental projects. The biodiversity of the whole peninsula depends upon all of these projects supporting and complimenting one another.

Manaia Ridge needed some attention. However, because DoC have no allocated budget for Manaia, pest control would have to be community driven. The project has become an exciting collaboration between BYK, Kiwi Coast, lots of enthusiastic locals, energetic experts from DoC and NRC, and the support of Ngatiwai Trust Board.

Kennedy Warne, natural history journalist and a former editor of New Zealand Geographic, recently talked about Manaia Landcare on National Radio. Click here to listen to the story!