2026 Community Planting day

The Tawapou Conservation Trust is holding a community planting day at Tawapou Farm on Saturday 27^th June from 9am until 12pm, followed by lunch at Tī kōuka Hut with our celebrity guest speaker Kennedy Warne.

Tawapou Farm is protected by a QE11 Open Space Covenant ensuring the perpetual preservation of the entire property. The covenant includes 2kms of pristine coastline which is home to several rare and endangered plant and animal species. At this year’s community planting day we will be linking up with the planting on the prominent headland known locally as Taurawhata, which many of you helped plant in 2017. (now 9 years ago), 6500 plants were transported to the site by helicopter. Taurawhata Headland is an environmentally significant area which includes both a northern coastline and a south facing coast, with two small shingle beaches. When we have completed this next step in the reforestation, it will recreate a continuous stretch of coastline native forest spanning over two kilometres.

It is very exciting for both Sandra and me, as we have specialized in growing northern coastal native plants for thirty plus years. This is our opportunity to reintroduce some significant rare trees that once inhabited that extreme environment very close to the ocean. From the shingle stabilizing plants on the beaches to plants for the steep cliff edges and the hills heading inland. In time, once established, they will add to the biodiversity of this extremely important area. 

We are always humbled by the amazing efforts of the community and really appreciate your support in our united vision to revegetate the entire property. Community efforts of the past have seen an excess of 130,000 native trees planted here at Tawapou, and this year we hope to plant a further 8000 trees and shrubs.

Another great ‘Planting Day Lunch’ is planned and once again, this is well supported by a group of volunteers in the community. They help by generously donating food, equipment and their time, behind the scenes and on the day.

This year our guest speaker is Kennedy Warne, a regular guest on RNZ and a huge conservation advocate throughout the country:

Planting Day Saturday 27th June 9am onwards Enter up Taurawhata Lane,

Follow signs to planting area. Please bring Family, spade, gloves, water bottle, suitable footwear.

Kennedy Warne is the founding editor of New Zealand Geographic magazine and a writer and tour guide for National Geographic. He also writes and edits for the online Māori-Pasifika magazine e-Tangata, and over the past 13 years he has been the outdoors and environment correspondent for Radio New Zealand’s weekday Nine to Noon programme, with a slot called “Off the beaten track.” He has written books on the world’s disappearing mangrove forests (Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea), on the Tūhoe iwi (Tūhoe: Portrait of a Nation), on his first 20 years with New Zealand Geographic (Roads Less Travelled) and a memoir of his encounters with the underwater world for National Geographic (Soundings: Diving for Stories in the Beckoning Sea) as well as two children’s books in collaboration with illustrator Heather Hunt (The Cuckoo and the Warbler and It’s My Egg: And You Can’t Have It!) He and Bronwyn live part-time in Auckland and part-time on Middle Ridge, less than two kilometres south-east of Tawapou as the kereru flies.