Ecofest 2014

35 March 5, 2014 Mahurangi Matters Feature

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If you’ve never heard a real kiwi calling out to its mates in the bush, then a special event being organised next month might be your only chance.The Tawharanui Open Sanctuary Society (Tossi) is holding a kiwi listening night on April 4 and 5 at Tawharanui regional park, as part of a month-long Ecofest in the region.Numbers are strictly limited for the two evenings, and bookings are essential. But if you miss out, there will be plenty of other chances to celebrate environmentally themed events as part of Ecofest.The festival, which runs from the middle of March to the middle of April, will showcase environmental projects and events from the Harbour Bridge north to Matakana. It started on the North Shore last year, and has been extended further north this year with the help of Matakana permaculturalist Trish Allen.“It’s been quite a big job, but a lot of fun though,” says Trish. “I got to find out about places I didn’t really know were there.”The festival kicks off on March 15 and 16 with guided tours of the Sculptural Habitat, which is a tranquil garden in Warkworth where natural sculptures

For those who are not feeling overly energetic, the Music in the Garden event on March 29 might be just the ticket.

Festival will showcase Mahurangi’s natural talent

35

ecofest > FEATURE

and artworks demonstrate the ongoing process of change.The garden began its life when hurricane-force winds tore down trees in 2007, which prompted its owners to give them a new identity as artworks. Bookings are essential.On March 19 and April 2, there will be a weed working bee at Kowhai Park, and on March 23 is the annual Mighty Mahu Tryathlon (see p29).Local country blues band Blind

Willie will be playing at the Matakana Community Garden on March 29, and afterwards a community clothes swap will be held in the Matakana Community Hall. The idea is to bring along clothes that no longer fit or are no longer used, and perhaps leave with someone else’s pre-loved threads.On April 5, local resident Janet Rogers will guide a three-hour walk to the summit of Mt Tamahunga, near Matakana. Members of the Tamahunga Trappers, a local pest-eradication group,

will also be on hand to tell their stories.Far less energy will be required for “Eco-readings in the Vines”, which will be held on April 12 at Heron’s Flight vineyard. Internationally acclaimed novelist Cath Koa Dunsford will give readings amongst the vineyard’s vines, olives and vegetable gardens.Wine and grape juice will be available for sale, and a wood-fired pizza oven will be turning out pizzas. But the public is also welcome to bring their own picnics.Several environmentally themed films will also screen at Matakana Cinemas, including an extraordinary time-lapse documentary about the people who work in Antarctica, which was one of the highlights of last year’s International Film Festival.The final event will be “Walk, Cycle, Plant”, which will encourage people to discover the Matakana to Omaha walkway/cycleway, and plant a tree along the route at the same time. Trees will be provided, or you can bring your own.Booklets outlining the full programme of events are available at the Warkworth and Matakana information centres, as well as Warkworth library.A full list of events is also available at ecofest.org.nz, and in Mahurangi Matters’ “What’s On” guide.

36 Mahurangi Matters March 5, 2014 Feature

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A giant clay oven that will be able to bake over 200 loaves of bread is being constructed on a farm in Whangateau.The community oven is over 3m high inside, and is made of clay found on site. It is being constructed on Caretaker Farm, and owner Audrey Sharp hopes the oven will be able to feed the community during events, or in an emergency.“If it’s going to be a community oven it has to be that big,” Audrey says. “If there’s a power cut, we can still feed the whole community.”The project has been a truly organic process, with the oven slowly taking form over the past four months, she says. “We’ve been using everything that’s found right here.”The oven has been constructed by French baker Fabrice Gendron. In France, community ovens are common, Fabrice says.“It’s a place for the community to come together and share stories. The idea is to recreate that here,” he says.Fabrice owned his own bakery for 30 years in an isolated village in the alps of south-eastern France. He made his own oven, but had never made clay from scratch.A smaller oven is being constructed, which will be used as a kiln, to test the materials and methods.“This has to be permanent. I want it to be here after I’m gone,” Fabrice says.

Audrey Sharp, Fabrice Gendron and his son Bryan are halfway through building a giant clay oven which they hope will feed the whole community.

Community oven will feed hundredsIt will be at least another year before the structure is finished.The project almost got stuck when Fabrice’s visa ran out last year. It has been an ongoing struggle to get permission for him to stay, but he has now had his visa extended. In the meantime Fabrice’s son, Bryan, has been unable to attend school.“We’ve had to pay for a private teacher to come up and give him lessons,” Audrey says.Nearly 100 people have already worked on the oven, with Wwoofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) staying at the farm helping out. An estimated $50,000 in labour hours and materials has been spent to get it to this stage. “I hate to think what it’s going to cost to finish it. I don’t want to know,” Audrey says.She has funded the project herself, using a good chunk of her income from her work as a lecturer in tax law at Auckland University.It is hoped the oven will also be used as a commercial baking oven. “It has to be able to fund itself. It has to be financially sustainable.”Audrey would welcome any help or feedback locals can provide and suggests they get in touch with her through the Facebook page CommunityEarthOven.If anyone can donate time or resources it would be much appreciated, she says.

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Over 20 kauri snails rescued from a Ti Point pine plantation are settling into their new home at Auckland Zoo and are about to become a part of a new exhibit.Twenty-two eggs were also found when zoo staff rescued the snails, and one has already hatched. The snails are notoriously difficult to keep in captivity, and it has been the first instance of a successful hatching.The giant carnivorous snails have a shell up to 8cm in diameter and can live for up to 20 years. Their eggs are the size of a small bird’s egg at around 12mm in diameter, and weigh one gram.The snails were discovered last year in 14.5ha of Auckland Council-owned forest, on the corner of Ti Point and Leigh Roads.The forest was due to be harvested in April but was halted while a plan was devised about how to best protect the snails.Consultation with DoC resulted in a plan to temporarily house the snails at Auckland Zoo.Auckland Zoo’s ectotherms team manager, Don McFarlane, spent hours with colleagues trying to rescue the nocturnal snails during four trips to the forest. However, they were limited by the number they could house at the zoo, Don says.“We did what we could with the time we had. We were pretty limited. Imagine four men searching through the dark on hands and knees for four

Kauri snails find new home

hours, sometimes till as late as 12am.”Don previously worked at London Zoo, where he managed snails for 12 years and helped to breed endangered snails in captivity.It is hoped the kauri snails will be on display at the zoo soon, but the aim is to eventually release them back into the wild, Don says. The forest is not set to be harvested until June, so plans for another trip to relocate the remaining snails are underway, he says.Auckland Council commercial property manager Antony Hobbs says the harvest has again been delayed as work is being done to plant a buffer around nearby streams.The forest was planted on a former landfill and is likely to be replanted in pine to further stabilise the area, Antony says.


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Finding a better way to balance the way Aucklanders use and enjoy the rich resources of the Hauraki Gulf will require a collaborative approach, according to the man chosen to lead NZ’s first attempt at marine spatial planning, Nick Main.Nick says that Sea Change, a two-year inter-agency project, has come along at a time when people are recognising that traditional planning models are failing. “Monitoring in the gulf shows that by and large, things are getting worse not better,” he says. “There’s a sense that no-one’s getting what they want and we need to urgently take a different approach.”The 2011 State of Our Gulf report, which will be updated this year, shows snapper and crayfish are being taken at unsustainable levels, fish diversity is diminishing, shellfish populations are under stress, high loads of nitrogen are entering the gulf and sedimentation is fuelling the spread of mangroves.Despite these dire indicators, Nick is optimistic that opportunities and possibilities will emerge through the spatial planning process. “I think most people agree on the broad principles around protecting the gulf, but when you starting talking specifically about things like marine farms and marine reserves that’s when things get stuck.“My job will be to shepherd the working group towards answers, not to pre-empt what those answers might be.“It’s also a bottom-up collaborative process on a pretty tight timeframe

Urgency underpins new Hauraki Gulf plann Log on to seachange.org.nz, where you can sign on for updates on the project.n Complete the SeaSketch survey, where informal opinions are being sought on current usage. Respondents who show an interest in particular issues will be fed information on those topics and could become involved in issue-specific working groups.n Feedback on draft solutions – these groups will be asked to input local knowledge, highlight gaps in existing information and capture other views. It will also give communities a chance to see how these solutions were drafted and the information they were based on.n Mid-project, when options are being generated, individuals will be able to log into SeaSketch, a mapping and ‘sketch’ tool, to develop and test different options.n If people belong to a local or interest group they can request a speaker to discuss the project.n Listening posts – conversations in coastal communities with small groups of local people. Listening Posts can be added to the programme between now and June, on request. These conversations (10-12 people per group) tap into local knowledge and experience.

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but if we get it right, I believe it could become ‘best practice’ internationally.”Nick, a former chair of Deloitte NZ and the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development, and current NZ Chartered Accountant of the Year, is no stranger to debates around sustainability and the challenges of finding common ground with disparate interest groups.He spent three years as the head of Deloitte’s global sustainability practice, based in London, and has attended some of the world’s most important talks on climate change including three Conference of the Parties (COP).Since retiring to Coatesville in 2012, he’s devoted time to projects that meet the test of being “interesting and capable of making a difference”. One of these is the Middlemore Foundation, which he

chairs. Although he grew up in England, he’s called NZ home for the past 30 years. “My father was a dairy farmer in Devon, when it was possible to still make a living from 30 cows on 100 acres. Those were the days when you built the milking parlour on a stream so you could sweep everything from the shed into the stream and the stream took it away.”Nick hopes that Sea Change will provide an environment where information and opinions can be widely shared and understood, which in turn will result in more buy-in to the recommendations that are eventually put forward.Consultation will happen around the middle of this year, with the final marine spatial plan expected to be available by September next year.


A reduction in crayfish numbers due to overfishing is significantly affecting the health of the Hauraki Gulf, academics say.Jan Hesse is in the final year of his PhD at Leigh Marine Laboratory and is investigating the causes of a dramatic decline in crayfish numbers in the area.His research is indicating that overfishing is a major factor, and he fears that unless action is taken, the species could be threatened.One of the key problems is that large crayfish have been effectively removed from the environment and this has led to an increase in kina, or sea urchin, numbers. They, in turn, have destroyed kelp forests, removing a key marine environment, Jan says.Jan’s PhD supervisor, Professor Andrew Jeffs, says the good news is that crayfish numbers can be revived. “What we saw when Leigh Marine Reserve was established, and what we’ve found at other marine reserves, is an immediate increase in crayfish numbers. And we’ve seen some pretty marked changes in habitat,” Andrew says.“The contrast is like that of a healthy forest, compared to that of a desert,” he says.Having large tracts of deserted sea floor has a broader impact. “The evidence suggests that we have reduced the population of crayfish to levels that are having an impact on the habitat and we are reducing the productivity

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of the Hauraki Gulf by taking that population.”Jan and Andrew believe that an upper size limit needs to be introduced to the quota management system to allow large, mature crayfish to develop. Crayfish have to live around five or six years before they are strong enough to break into a kina, and mature crayfish also reproduce more successfully, with a lot more offspring. Australia has successfully implemented a similar programme, they say.A small reduction on the daily maximum limit for recreational fishing, and reduced quota on commercial fishing, may also work to boost numbers, but only in combination with other factors such us an upper size limit.

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A local solar power expert is less than glowing about a potential Government policy intended to encourage more installation of solar power in people’s homes.Environmental engineer Eric Jansseune believes New Zealand needs to focus on reducing its electricity usage before it considers widespread solar installation.Eric worked in the solar industry in Europe for 15 years before emigrating from Belgium eight years ago.His comments follow the Green Party’s announcement that it will be pushing for low interest loans for households to install home solar systems if it becomes part of the next Government.The loans would be paid back through rates, meaning they would remain with the house, rather than the homeowner.Eric believes the Green Party’s policy is skipping crucial steps. Solar power is a viable alternative, but it is important to run an energy efficient household before making the switch, he says.“New Zealand is one of the least energy efficient countries in the world. It just doesn’t make sense for New Zealand to switch to solar now. We need to reduce usage first, and then switch to solar after,” he says.New Zealand’s average household uses 25kW of electricity per day compared with 18kW in Australia and only 11kW in Britain.

Solar power policy premature, says expert

Eric Janseunne says New Zealand is one of the least energy efficient countries.

Much of this is wasted in inefficient hot water cylinder systems, which lose 30 per cent of their energy in heat loss trying to maintain water temperature all day. Eric recommends households make a transition to gas systems which heat the water on demand, and which can give a boost to solar water heating if you choose to install solar down the track.Heating costs, including water heating, account for 60 per cent of the average power usage in New Zealand, he says,

so transferring to gas and solar can lead to significant savings.Electric radiator heaters and poor insulation also waste energy. As your overall power use reduces, solar becomes more affordable, as a 1.5kW system may suffice, saving thousands on a 3kW system, he says.He would also like to see regulation of the price that power companies pay for the extra power produced by a home solar system. As solar panels produce electricity during the day when not a

lot of power is used, they can make money when excess electricity is sold back to the grid.In Europe, the price is set at the same price you buy electricity for, he says. But that is not the case here.Eric has been selling the power he produces from his solar panels at home to Contact Energy and the price he receives has gone from 30 cents to 10 cents. “Currently they could pay you [nothing] if they wanted to.”Cheap and inefficient solar systems are also a cause for concern, he says. Chinese systems have flooded the local market and some are guilty of providing customers with dodgy energy ratings, he says.Some systems have been found to be producing 20 to 30 per cent less than what is stated. Eric recommends paying the extra money to be sure you’re getting a state of-the-art system which is likely to save you in the long run.Some of the cheaper Chinese systems could also be dangerous, with faulty components, he says. “I would never buy them myself. Some of them have been creating sparks.”Eric will be running a seminar at Ecofest in Matakana to give people facts about solar power and to dispel some of the myths.He will be speaking at Matakana Hall at 7.30pm on March 29. Entry is a gold coin donation.

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Castles in the sandDespite credible international science proving that climate change is human-induced, Governments and the public have been slow to acknowledge the scale of the threats we face. Not only are we collectively failing to anticipate or respond to climate change, but we’re doing little to address its causes. Increased climate variability and extreme weather events, bizarre temperatures, and damage to land and property are the new reality. But we continue to develop and occupy marginal land. We drain swamps, bulldoze sand dunes, build on low-lying land and remove all buffers to the weather. Deregulated land development and building means that almost anything goes, anywhere. When councils do attempt to apply precautionary notations on property titles, land owners are appalled. But when storm events do damage property, costs are socialised through the Earthquake Commission (for landslides etc) or increasing insurance premiums. As insurance companies come to reject climate claims, costs will increasingly fall on homeowners and ratepayers. Given the long life of residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure, and the clear prospect

of worsening extreme weather conditions, planners would be right to advise development caution. We should also be concerned at the loss of other values such as inter-tidal ecosystems, salt marshes and beaches, as well as culturally and historically significant sites which are often overlooked or understated. The natural character of the coast is also at risk as we seek to engineer hard solutions to worse weather.Some recommendations for mitigating climate change impacts include “managed retreat” as development is withdrawn over time; adaptation, where buildings and infrastructure are retrofitted (ie lifted or moved) to avoid storm pressures; or defence – hard structures like sea walls. But much development is fixed already. Councils seem reluctant or powerless to stop new development in marginal areas. But they’ll be liable for costs for failing to prevent it. Councils and communities will pay for others’ views, access and ultimately their vulnerability to the rising sea.The Christchurch earthquake recovery provides opportunities for a managed adaptation to climate change. For most other areas, the problems will be with us for a long time to come.

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Ecofest 2014