Trees for Survival

Trees for Survival planting progresses up the Awhitu Peninsula
The stretch from Waiuku North to the Lighthouse Beacon has always been known for spectacular glimpses of the Tasman between undulating hills, green farmland and huddled clusters of pohutukawa. These are bent into weather-beaten shapes by the prevailing winds. This landscape is undergoing a profound change with the re-introduction of native trees. Planting is concentrated especially along the banks of many wetlands and streams that glisten and twist between the folds and gullies on this route.

Farmers and landowners have become increasingly concerned about restoring the native bush, protecting banks and improving water quality on their land. Robert and Kay Hamilton from Pollok are among those farmers who have taken steps to fence vulnerable stretches and join the Trees for Survival (TfS) campaign to plant natives and protect streams. They understand how these essential conservation actions lead to long-term benefits for wildlife and the whole of the environment.

Waiuku College implements the TfS programme by looking after native seedlings in its Plant Growing Unit until they are ready for planting. This month the College sent its team of students to help Robert and Kay with their project. Over a thousand saplings were planted on the selected site on a beautiful sunny day.

Financial and community support for the planting comes from NZ Steel. Their staff helped with hard work on the day, and (during a tasty lunch break) presented copies of the TfS Secondary Schools Resource book to the College. This is a special publication that assists both the teacher and the school with the growing and planting programme. Well done! A fine effort by everyone involved.

Ponsonby Primary School joins TFS
Ponsonby Primary have eagerly been waiting for their seedlings and so kick off their partnership with TFS and Victoria Park Market New World. Until recently the children thought the Plant Growing Unit was a fantastic animal cage for playing zoo's in.

Excited about the new project, Barbara Henderson, coordinator of the gifted and talented programme, has engaged the children in research and innovative IT presentations centered on environmental awareness and the value of the TFS programme. The class has a regular weekly time slot for TFS activities and now with over 700 seedlings safely tucked into their new root trainer micro-climate, there is new plant life in the PGU!

Well done Ponsonby Primary, great to have you on board.

"Plant for the Planet"

Can one million trees be planted in New Zealand during 2007? The Trees for Survival Trust is sure they can and has taken on the task of encouraging all New Zealanders to join them in planting one million trees this calendar year.

Why? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has an objective of planting one billion trees throughout the world in 2007. As the Kiwi contribution to the world-wide effort, the Trust is coordinating the campaign to plant and care for at least one million trees.

The proposal to get involved in the campaign came from a suggestion by Rotary International President Bill Boyd. Involved in the New Zealand Trees for Survival Trust from its beginning with the Rotary Club of Pakuranga, Bill says the value of planting trees is well documented. "Despite our clean and green image on the world stage, New Zealand needs more trees and we hope that this campaign will go some way towards addressing the issue."

"Through Trees for Survival we are offering not only an environmental focus but also an invaluable educational tool for our young people, " he said.

Rotary and other service clubs throughout the country are being urged to assist schools and their communities to become involved in achieving the goal. Arbor Day on June 5 and Conservation Week from August 6 - 12 will be focuses for the 'Plant for the Planet' message.
The coordinator for the Billion Tree Campaign in New Zealand, David English, says a website www.tfsnz.org.nz provides information on the New Zealand pledge to plant 1 million trees.

"People who wish to support the initiative can email to become involved. The campaign is open to all individuals, children and youth groups, schools, community groups, farmers, private sector organisations and local authorities. Each pledge can be for a single tree to many thousands, " he added.

The campaign is seeking to enlist the support of the nursery and garden industry in the supply of trees to enable the campaign to reach its goal.
"Pledges from around the world in support of the campaign now exceed 800 million trees," says David. "UNEP says favourable growing conditions give nations in the southern hemisphere an advantage over most countries when it comes to growing trees, so we are sure of reaching and sustaining our target.

" Now is a great time to highlight the need to revegetate our country and we hope this campaign will educate our young people on the value of trees in our environment. Their aesthetics, their part in the prevention of erosion and in improving stream water quality, in creating new habitats as well as their role as carbon sinks emphasises the need to plant more trees.
" The Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign encourages planting in all areas, whether rural or urban, school grounds or community parks and of trees, not just natives, that are well adapted to local conditions. Councils throughout the country have been very supportive of this campaign, so the process is well under way," he said.

Released on behalf of the Trees for Survival One MIllion Trees Campaign by CAL Public Relations, contact Rob Crabtree 09 273 2065
For further information contact David English phone 09 526 0296 or 027 281 4108

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Ngatapa School in Gisborne with a roll of 23 has a project to plant 43 trees and shrubs in its school grounds. Arbor Day was a good time to start and as a result of the day's activities 17 are now safe and sound in the ground. Well done, Ngatapa!

At Bayswater School each class planted an olive tree to commemorate Arbor Day. The Enviro Group spoke at Assembly on the Friday to help fellow students understand the importance of trees to the environment. The children were encouraged to bring a coin donation to help pay for the trees. We raised $135. The trees have been planted in an area that is to be designed and developed by the students and staff during a living landscapes learning focus within Term 3.

Earlier this month Trees for Survival received a $500.00 donation from Lifestream International.

Lynda Wyllie, National Co-ordinator of Trees for Survival says, “As a Charitable Trust TFS relies on the generosity of Company’s like Lifestream. We believe the decision to donate to TFS as an alternative to sending Christmas cards to their customers, a choice that will give a much longer-lasting positive effect.”

Trees for Survival is currently involved with more than 140 schools around New Zealand, providing hands-on environmental education to children, through growing and planting native trees on ‘at risk’ land. The benefits are many. There are the community aspects of the programme: TFS is not about one school or group but focuses on ‘community partnerships’ between the supporting organisation, the school, the landowner, and the regional council. These links pave the way for other community projects, opportunities and responsibility.

There is also an environmental aspect of TFS: reducing erosion, improving stream and water quality and ‘planting trees’. A widely used calculation equates 23 trees toward offsetting the impact of a company vehicle for approximately one year – Lifestream International’s donation is equivalent to 100 trees and 4.3 company cars.

The last aspect of the TFS programme and possibly the most important is the educational benefit. Through TFS, children receive opportunities to learn about the environment and to make a difference. These skills and vision will stay with many and guide them toward environmentally responsible decision making in the future.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) sponsored Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign has planted over ONE BILLION TREES worldwide this year. In support New Zealand’s Trees for Survival has coordinated the planting of more than ONE MILLION trees as this country’s contribution to the Campaign. With one million trees planted, the NZ Coordinator, David English reflects on the value of these plantings for our future.

The Billion Tree Campaign was inspired by Professor Wangari Maathai Africa’s foremost environmental campaigner and a 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Professor Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and is responsible for planting more than 30 million trees throughout Africa.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, in announcing the success of the Billion Tree Campaign said: “There had been a few cynical smiles and shaking of heads when the Campaign was launched. But citizen after citizen, community after community and country after country, have proved the doubters wrong and demonstrated an abiding truth in 2007.”

“Namely that given a focus and the chance to act, millions if not billions of people around this world want an end to pollution and environmental deterioration and have rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty to prove the point,” said Mr Steiner.

Globally, forest cover is at least one-third less than what it once was. Worldwide 32 million acres of forest, equivalent to the size of England, are destroyed each year and yet planting and natural expansion of the forest replaces less than 14 million acres.

In New Zealand, we think of ourselves as being ‘clean and green’. But we have progressively deforested our country. Indigenous and exotic forests account for less than a third of our total land area where once forests covered two thirds of the country. Last year exotic forest replacement was the lowest for 60 years.

In spite of this, the response to our tree planting campaign shows that we recognise the need to plant more trees, not only because they sequester carbon, but also because of their role in the preservation of soils and the control of erosion, improving water quality and stream flow. Tree plantings create new habitats and increase biodiversity in addition to their aesthetic and economic benefits.

Much is being made, and rightly so, of the need to control our carbon emissions. Programmes have been formulated to measure, manage and mitigate our carbon usage. But we also need an urgent focus on revegetating New Zealand not only because trees absorb carbon but also for the many other environmental and economic benefits. The average New Zealander recognises this but unfortunately the same cannot be said for Government whose prime interest appears to be the management of the scramble for carbon credits.

The one million trees planted this year by participants in our campaign will possibly mitigate the annual emissions of nearly 45,000 cars – in addition to the environmental, social and economic benefits which will accrue.”

We hear that the Government of Costa Rica, a popular eco-tourist destination, planning to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2021, has planted 6.5 million trees this year and plans a further 7 million next year. There are many other examples of governments being proactive in their tree planting campaigns. In New Zealand we appear to be relying on the regeneration of our already devastated forests to replace our tree stock.

It is a letdown, to say the least, to find that Government-led Kyoto protocols do not acknowledge these plantings. Apparently this is because it is very difficult to quantify the carbon benefits of such plantings and so only established forests and planted areas greater than 50 hectares qualify as ‘Kyoto Forests’.

The current ‘carbon credit’ focus is out of the reach of the average New Zealander and it risks failure because of economic reasons rather than poor environmental management.

If Government was serious about abating the effects of carbon emissions via trees, they should be doing more to encourage councils, communities, environmental groups, schools and individuals by providing greater incentives to plant more trees. By engaging the people, especially children, and supporting tree planting projects, small or large, Government will make greater inroads not only in mitigating future carbon emissions but also in the recovery of our treed landscape.

There are very significant numbers of trees being planted in New Zealand outside of what may qualify for Kyoto – the campaign has shown that. We need to quantify these plantings in order to get a better understanding of the benefits gained from these ‘non-forest’ plantings. We need a National Tree Planting Register to follow on from the Billion Tree Campaign.

However, we can celebrate the fact that

New Zealand

achieved its goal and everyone involved can take a share of the credit for the success of the campaign.

Trees for Survival, who championed the Billion Tree Campaign in

New Zealand

, is committed to providing school children the opportunity to grow and nurture trees. Some 140 schools are involved the Trees for Survival programme resulting in more than 60,000 trees being planted throughout New Zealand each year.

More information about Trees for Survival and the New Zealand campaign to plant one million trees can be found on www.tfsnz.org.nz

Lincoln to plant 1400 trees in their Mahoe Reserve revegetation project - 17th June. More>>

Lincoln High School

In conjunction with the Lincoln Envirotown Trust and the Lincoln Community will be planting over 1400 trees in the Mahoe Reserve revegetation project originally started by a year 9 Lincoln High School class. The aim is to recreate native forest vegetation that used to exist in the area about 1000 years ago.

We would love to have more helpers! Our first community planting day for this year is on the 17^th June, starting at 10.00am. Please bring planting tools and gloves. There is quite a bit of prickly, dead gorse so cutting tools might be good too! The Mahoe Reserve is to be found in Boundary Road, Lincoln. If you would like more information please contact Lincoln High School. You can also check www.lincolnenvirotown.org.nz

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St Pius X School

Is an Enviro school (part of an Environmental Education Programme supported by City and the Regional Council in Hamilton. They were undertaking a stream study with the Regional Council (Environment Waikato).

The study looked into stream water quality and compared streams in the bush area at Mt Pirongia to the City stream (Mangakotukutuku) at Sandford Park.

They observed that insect and fish numbers were greater at Mt Pirongia than at Sandford Park due to the level of shade and good habitat at Mt Pirongia. They decided that as part of their study that they could help a local group, the Mangakotukutuku Stream care group (www.streamcare.org), with restoration planting of the stream back to native plants similar to Mt Pirongia to help improve the stream water quality.

On the 30^th April they planted trees, ferns, flaxes etc along the stream banks to help prevent erosion, while providing shade and better habitat for fish and eels.

Although this stream is probably the one of the best in water quality in the city and supports native fish such as the banded kokopu and large finned eels, there is still a very real need to stabilise banks to prevent downstream erosion effects.

The students have pledged their plantings to the Billion Tree Campaign as part of the "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally!" message and were excited to be able to further enhance the area to make it a better habitat for native animals and plants.

Holyoake Award 2007

The Holyoake Award is a national competition sponsored by Noel Holyoake and Holyoake Industries Ltd.

It is an annual award and is open to all schools that have been involved in the TFS programme for two years or more, with prize money of $1000 shared between the winning schools.

The Holyoake Award is your school’s opportunity to tell us what makes your TFS unit special, we want to know what you grow, how you do it, where you plant, what partners are involved and how you integrate the TFS programme into your school and community.

The competition will close earlier this year on September 14^thwith the winners to be announced on October 12^th.

So remember to take your camera on planting day and get your school thinking about its Holyoake Award entry.

You can download backgound information about the Holyoake Award here as well as the Application Form.