Mostly just stuff I am doing to help the planet
New Zealand has two praying mantises, the invasive South African praying mantis and the native New Zealand praying mantis. The easiest way to tell the two species apart is the shape of the head. The thorax (bit that connects their heads to their abdomens) is much wider on a New Zealand mantis so by comparison the South Africans look like hammerheads.
I have started work helping New Zealanders keep their Parks and Reserves. Building and Construction Minister Dr Nick Smith says that we have to “choose between using land for houses or cows”. This is ridiculous – saying our reserves are for cows is like saying Eden park is for lawn mowers!
When I first heard about erosion in the Hunua Ranges causing havoc for Auckland’s water supply I wondered if it was because of recent deforestation. Drone footage shot by Watercare confirmed that theory for me (see stills below from this video). It seems strange media are not talking about it. To me it looks like just another case of our water being compromised for private profit.
A little bird told me Watercare own the land and were in the midst of replanting it with natives – it would be good to know the full details. I will email them.
Response
http://www.watercare.co.nz/about-watercare/news/Pages/Watercare-to-regenerate-pine-forest-in-Hunua-Ranges-with-natives.aspx
(2,089-72 = 2017) So sometime in 2017 they decided to start harvesting. But the wood in the pictures looks at least months old. My guess is the harvesting that caused the contamination was done in 2016 for private profit. Hard to tell from the information received. Awaiting a report with interest.
I am scoping a project I would like to build as a web app. To get an idea of how much work was involved in creating one I made a quick test app and published it here on the Apple App Store. Given my skill set the design work was a small part of the job (12%), CSS & JS was three times more (38%) and the rest of my time was spent on new stuff to do with getting the app to run on an iPhone (60%). I can probably halve that on my next project but it was a lot harder than I expected.
It’s a fun app, you can make lists like this 😀
Everyone was really impressed with Eugenie Sage when we presented the petition to her at Point England today. I have put together a press release to explain that I didn’t cause the housing crisis (ridiculous!).
Smil, V. 2003. The Earth’s Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change, MIT Press
Today I presented to the Local Government and Environment select committee on the Point England Development Enabling Bill. Link to submission below.
Things I learnt:
Ngāti Paoa have been great and let me talk to Morphum who are doing an Environmental Assessment for consenting purposes. No one has made any promises and I am anxious the developers are not incentivised to do right thing for the birds, but I am optimistic. Note the logo on the development website above.
After more than half a century Green Lipped mussels have not returned to the soft seafloor of the Hauraki Gulf. However only 100km north at the mouth of the Whangarei Harbour something magic happened. Out of nowhere a huge bed of mussels appeared. I was slow to document it but here are some photos by Dr. Mary A. Sewell in April 2016.
The bed was quickly consumed. Locals could park their cars a few meters from the beds. There were reports of people turning up with wheel barrows and of cars and boats being confiscated for those who exceeded their limits. The beds have now been decimated, (An MPI officer thinks the beds did not disappear but were greatly reduced in their first season, I did not find the original bed on my first trip). I turned up eight months later at low tide and followed some locals to the remaining beds. They looked like this:
The remaining bed ran along the edge of the drop off about 4m at low tide and supported a wide range of marine life. On my way back to the beach I wondered what conditions bought about this beautiful natural phenomena? There may well have been sufficient spat from mussels growing on the refinery wharf, but did a closure of the cockle beds promote natural the recovery? Could the neighbouring marine reserve have played a part? Was this a once off or part of the recovery of the Whangarei harbour since the Firth cement works has cleaned up its act? Then I spotted these:
It seems the cockle and pipi shells have created a firm substrate for the juvenile mussels to attach to. Is this how the bed started of? No hydroids or red filamentous algae to attach to, just green algae and shell? If so this is a recipe worth exploring for aided restoration elsewhere in New Zealand. Local iwi (Patuharakeke Te Iwi Trust Board) have proposed a 2-year temporary closure to the take of all shellfish at Mair Bank and Marsden Bank, Whangarei.
Note there was a large pipi & cockle die off on the shell bank where mussels appeared.
UPDATE: Nov 2017
There are isolated individuals ranging for a hundred meters or so west of the main bed. Most mussels were around 6-8cm long. I could not find blue mussels in the bed, I did however see fish eggs, octopus, crabs, evidence of fish feeding on the mussels, triplefins and many shorebirds enjoying the exposed reef. The mussels were also growing in smaller patches off the edge of the sand bank into the channel where I found the remnants in Dec 16.
Hopefully this bed continues to regenerate despite the massive human harvesting effort. Identifying and protecting the seed stock would go a long way towards this.
The current here is very strong, here is a short video of 1,000s of young pipi swept in current. They seem to be regenerating.
UPDATE: Jan 2018
Two insights after talking to locals.
Also the beds look choice at high tide, I saw sea hares and piper fish. Look how many species in this photo:
UPDATE: Feb 2018
I managed to track down a report which mapped the bed in Feb 2016. They worked out that the mussel bed then covered an area of approximately 12,800m2 and had an average coverage 38.3%.
UPDATE: Jul 2020
Conditions were rubbish but I had a good look around and could not find the mussel beds. I could not see any mussel shells so I assume the mussels were taken by humans and the rahui on all shellfish in the area was not strong enough protection. The Northland Regional Council could now look at protection measures given the Motiti decision.
There is a lot of algae on the shellbanks which could help the beds return as it is important for the initial recruitment phase for several species of shellfish. We need to find the original adult mussel bed that seeded this bed and protect it so it does not disappear like this one.
Images have been released of the Point England concept plan.
Although it looks pretty and I welcome the Omaru creek enhancements (that Watercare have been working on) and the walkway upgrades (that Auckland Council have been working on) there are some major problems:
But lets not take my word for it (I am not a ecological scientist). We need an independent ecological impact assessment done before the bill is passed.
Follow the development at savePE.org.nz