What a great morning site clearing and planting native plants on a cool, crisp day with the wonderful Mokihi Trust restoration group in Cromwell. The Trust are planting a riverside area next to the Kawarau River and we were thrilled to help support them continue their restoration work. We presented to a number of schools earlier in the week and it was great to have a number of students from the local school come down with their parents to help plant native plants and engage with the area. We’re looking forward to returning next year! Thanks to Meridian Energy, Phoenix Drinks, Eighthirty Coffee Roasters and WWF New Zealand for supporting our Sustainable Coastlines Love Your Water program.

As part of our 2017 Love Your Water project we invite you to join us on Sunday 13 August at Richard’s Beach to have a cup of tea, plant a couple of trees and introduce this new restoration area to the community.  Sustainable Coastlines staff will be on site to chat about our work and the The Mokihi Trust will be there to answer questions about the plans for the area.  We want to help them give some love to this special area, so we’re spreading the word about the amazing work that they do.

Look out for the blue Sustainable Coastlines at the end of Richards Beach Road, we’ll be there from 11.00am and finishing up around 2:00pm. You can stay for as little or as long as you like, but afterwards we’ll all come together for a cup of coffee and some Phoenix Organics Drinks.

It is with delight that we announce the conclusion of Love Your Water Drury, with the support of responsible developers, Auranga. This program, comprising of two planting days and 23 school and community presentations, shows how great things can happen when socially and environmentally responsible business support the work of charities such as ours.

Auranga is a new community on a greenfields site with a responsibility to the natural environment. Auranga is serious about contributing to improved waterways and is including a generous number of parks, reserves, walkways, cycleways and boardwalks as well as planting tens of thousands of native plants in rain gardens, wetlands and along the banks of stream and estuary waterways – this is why the partnership between Sustainable Coastlines and Auranga is so important.

From September 5 to September 15, Sustainable Coastlines visited three South Auckland schools to deliver our Love Your Water presentation. This presentation overviews the amazing freshwater ecosystems that we have in New Zealand, some problems they face and the solutions to these problems. The schools’ tour started off with a visit from Auckland Programmes Manager, Fletcher Sunde, to a class of year seven and eights at Hingaia Peninsula School. Fletcher said the class was one of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic classes he’d ever taught. This was followed by presentations at Rosehill College, where two classes of year 12 students were hoping to use the opportunity to be involved in the community planting day as a chance to earn credits towards social responsibility achievement standards. The school presentation series culminated with a full day of freshwater education at Drury School, where three Sustainable Coastlines staff and two volunteers presented individually to all 18 classes, from year 0 to year 8 – the first time this has been achieved in a large school.

The education tour was followed by two planting days, which saw 2,148 native trees find a new home on the banks of the Ngakoro Stream, an upper tributary of the Manukau Harbour. On Friday September 22nd, an enthusiastic class of year seven and eights from Park Estate School planted 240 manuka, kanuka, te kouka, harakeke and more, but of course not before they had received the obligatory educational message. “The students loved it so much that in the end even a localised downpour couldn’t stop them from getting out and continuing their efforts after lunch”, said Fletcher.

Two days later was the big one, the community planting day on Sunday September 24th, 2017. This special day, which was opened with a moving Karakia from Ngati Tamaoho’s Hero Potini, saw 92 people of all ages and backgrounds come together to plant an additional 1,908 additional native plants on the riparian banks of the stream. There were primary students from local schools we’d been in, people we’d chatted to at service stations, those who had seen a flyer in the local cafe or had heard word through social or traditional media, a group of the year 12s from Rosehill College and of course those from the Auranga office, all mucking in together to get the plants in the ground. Sustainable Coastlines Ambassadors delivered in situ Love Your Coast presentations and volunteers were well rewarded with a delicious hot delivery from Mexicali Fresh.

Auranga’s Marketing Manager, John Gundesen had this to say: “Sustainable Coastlines do a great job of promoting, managing, informing and educating our local community and schools and we look forward to collaborating on similar events in the future. Most memorable for me is the wonderful aroha they bring to every aspect of the day from the music playing while we all plant trees to the tasty, healthy food at lunchtime and happy helpful people all day long – priceless! These waterways and tree planting days represent our brand to the local community, which is very important to us.”

Total results for the series are:

• Two planting events
• 2,148 native riparian plants in the groudnd
• 126 volunteer planters
• 441 volunteer hours
• 22 school and one public Love Your Water presentations
• 569 people educated

Thanks abound to Rachel Calendar, John Gundesen, Elizabeth Ma, Luke Henshall and Charles Ma from the Auranga team, local hero teachers Sally Alvern, Amy Pye, Meg Goldthorpe, James Fraser, and Jilly Leger, Sophie Kynman-Cole, Sarah Balchin and Julia Bennett of The Plant People for their professional planting assistance, Hero Potini and all those who shared our message, such as Auckland based bilingual broadcaster, Radio Waatea and of course the local Drury and Karaka communities.

Bring on next year

As part of our 2017 Love Your Water project we invite you to join us on Saturday 5 August for a day of tree planting and weeding alongside Elgin Terrace in Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island. The Stewart Island / Rakiura Community Environment Trust do amazing work on the island, and are lovingly overlooking its restoration, so we want to help them give some love to this special area.

Huge thanks to Real Journeys for giving the Sustainable Coastline’s employees free passage to the Island to run our programme!

We’ll meet from 11.00am – look out for the blue Sustainable Coastlines along Elgin Terrace.  We’ll be starting from 11.15am and finishing up around 1.30pm. You can stay for as little or as long as you like, but afterwards we’ll all come together for a some tasty food and some Phoenix Organics Drinks. To participate, please take a few seconds to sign up via our quick registration form.

If you’re coming from the mainland, catch the 9.45am ferry to Oban – the planting is within walking distance from the ferry terminal – just head around the coast to the south and you’ll find us.  We’ll be all done in time for the 3pm ferry – so why not make a day or weekend of it out on Stewart Island?! More ferry information can be found here.

What a day – the people bring the impact!

We had around 90 people turn up to plant 2,100 native trees at Te Atatu’s Harbourview-Orangihina Park. Good people, good conversation, good outcome. A picture says a thousand words so please scroll through the photos above to see how it all went down.

Bring on next year. Love your water!

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As part of our 2017 Love Your Water project, we invite you to join us on Saturday 26 August for a day of tree planting on the shores of the upper Waitemata Harbour, at the entrance to the Whau River. Join Sustainable Coastlines and other local groups for a fun day of planting activity and riparian education.

Harbourview-Orangihina Park is a special slice of Auckland, containing some of the city’s last remaining stretches of wetland and being home to, amongst others, the endemic Fernbird ormātātā. This planting event will contribute to the ongoing restoration of the park, spearheaded over the last five years by Forest & Bird’s Motu Manawa Restoration Group and Friends of Harbourview.

Simply meet from 10.00am at the Gloria Avenue car park and look for our blue Sustainable Coastlines flags and friendly helpers in high-vis gear. We’ll be starting from 10.00am and finishing up around 1:00pm. You can stay for as little or as long as you like, but afterwards we’ll all come together for a tasty sausage sizzle and some Phoenix Organics Drinks.

In honour and celebration of World Oceans Day on Thursday 8 June, we’re hosting a screening of the stunning documentary A Plastic Ocean at The Flagship Education Centre.

Join us from 6.30pm, for a 7.00pm film start, at The Flagship on the corner of Madden and Beaumont Streets, Wynyard Quarter. Entry is free on a first-come-first-served basis, so get in quick, spaces on our epic bean bags are limited. Spot prizes, delicious drinks and a speech from our team are all part of the package so please come along, we would love to see you!

See trailer for A Plastic Ocean here.

A Plastic Ocean is a new feature-length adventure documentary that brings to light the consequences of our global disposable lifestyle. We thought we could use plastic once and throw it away with negligible impact to humans and animals. That turns out to be untrue.

In A Plastic Ocean, an international team of adventurers, researchers, and Ocean ambassadors go on a mission around the globe to uncover the shocking truth about what is truly lurking beneath the surface of our seemingly pristine Ocean.

The results will astound viewers with never-before-seen images of marine life, plastic pollution, and its ultimate consequences for human health.

During its four-year production period, A Plastic Ocean was filmed in 20 locations around the world in beautiful and chilling detail to document the global effects of plastic pollution–and introduce workable technology and policy solutions that can, if implemented in time, change things for the better.

Please note: in the interests of looking after the places we love, and avoiding traffic, wherever possible we would love to encourage all guests to please bike, walk, skate or take public transport to get to The Flagship.