- Do you have any ideas or suggestions we should consider, as we draft the management plan for local parks in your local board area? Are there any ideas of suggestions you have for the use, enjoyment, protection, management and development for local parks in your area? Please include the name or location of the park/s, if possible.
Please include a network of safe places for shorebirds to roost and nest in parks adjacent to the Tāmaki Estuary. The areas that are important to shorebirds have been mapped in the attached document Shorebirds-of-the-Tamaki-Estuary-by-Shaun-Lee.pdf detailed evidence for the preservation of the shorebird roosting and nesting habitat can be found in PE-Development-Full-Evidence-Shaun Lee.pdf and PE-Development-Futher-Evidence-Shaun-Lee.pdf also attached. Since the Point England Development Enabling Bill has passed the stock have been removed from Point England. Despite our best efforts with mowing productivity has declined dramatically. I suggest we return the stock, feel free to contact me or Council biodiversity staff if you would like to see the breeding reports.
- Can you tell us what you like about the park(s) in your local board area? Please include the name or location of the parks, if possible.
The roosting and nesting shorebirds. Numbers of shorebirds in the parks have greatly reduced over the last few decades and some species are now locally extinct. We need to do a better job of looking after them as some species are going extinct globally. The most important parks in the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki area are the Point England Reserve and Mt Wellington War Memorial Reserve.
Can you tell us what you don’t like about the park(s) in your local board area? Please include the name or location of the parks, if possible.
There is no space dedicated to shorebirds. This means they are regularly disturbed by golf practice, frisbee, casual ball play, jogging, walking, drone flying, kite-surfing, kite flying, picnicking, dog walking and much more. Disturbance in parks is increasing with population density. Key roosting and nesting areas are threatened with development. Minor things like paths, lighting and even trees can negatively impact shorebird habitat.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about parks in your area? Please share any other thoughts about local parks here.
Please make sure decision makers are aware of the status of threatened and conservation dependant species that use Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Parks, then they can make good decisions and start to restore habitats and associated abundance and diversity.