Conservation Volunteers Make Another Big Contribution—August 22-25

A great group from Conservation Volunteers NZ spent a short four day week at CUE Haven but made a major contribution to our tree planting efforts.

The team was led by Peter Hannon of Conservation Volunteers and included Timm, Anja and Angelika from Germany, Yamato and Kana from Japan, and Jieun and Taegyu from Korea. Timm and Angelika were our first repeat volunteers!  They had been with a group that had come out earlier in August.  We enjoyed seeing them again and their experience was helpful to the other team members, most of whom had just arrived in New Zealand.

The team arrived on Monday morning and unpacked and got settled into the cottage.  Even though it is mid-winter, the weather was so warm we had morning tea outside!

We then gave them a short briefing on the CUE Haven project and then they got straight to work.

Our neighbour, Maria, also stopped by and helped out on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday morning, we got a fresh supply of plants and the group helped Jane Straka of Scrub Growers unload the plants in the nursery.

As winter is fast coming to an end, we wanted to complete our scheduled planting for this season so we asked the team to concentrate solely on planting.  They finished work in the main area that we have been planting this season and then went back and filled in some more difficult spots.

We had perfect weather all week and the only thing that slowed the team down was the rough terrain and blackberry they had to contend with.  Even though they were with us for only three and a half days they still managed to plant over 2,400 trees.

After cleaning up the cottage on Friday morning the teamed headed off.  We really appreciate all your hard effort.  Thanks and we hope to see you again at CUE Haven.  Thanks!