Air New Zealand Greenteam—4 May 2019

Air New Zealand has a strong commitment to offsetting the impact of air travel on the environment, and Air New Zealand employees are involved in several green initiatives.  The Air New Zealand Greenteam includes over 3,000 employees who are committed to environmental action and education both at work and home.

For the fifth year in a row, a great group of Air NZ staff who are also members of the Air NZ Greenteam spent a day a CUE Haven helping out with our planting efforts.  It was great seeing old friends and meeting lots of new ones!  Many of the Greenteam members brought along family and friends and that contributed to the fun and relaxed atmosphere of the day.

The group of 29 arrived around ten and included Ana, Alina, Analia, Anoo, Anushka, Caroline, Charmina, Chelsea Christine, Denise, Diana, Felipe, Guido, Hansa, Helayna, Josh, Juliet, Kate, Ketan, Kim, Klaas, Kynthia, Loraine, Maya, Morgan, Sabine, Shelley, Stephanie and Tomas.

We had a relaxing morning tea and then Mahrukh gave a welcome and brief history of the CUE Haven restoration project and talked about recent developments.

Thomas gave an overview of the work planned for the day, a planting demo and a safety briefing.

Today’s plan was to do infill planting of long-lived native trees (puriri, taraire, kohekohe and totara) and also some second tier trees (mahoe, mapou) in an area where the pioneer trees planted in in 2011 and 2012 have grown up really well and have created a nice canopy for the slower growing long lived trees.

Because of the size of the group, we drove up in three smaller groups.  Once everyone was at the planting site, the group went to work.  The crates of plants had been previously brought up and the group broke into teams.  Each team took crates and disappeared into the bush to find good planting spots.

As the planting area was huge the group quickly spread out.

The team moved through the planting area and were so productive, we needed to go down to the nursery to get more plants!

After several hours of planting it was time for a late and well deserved lunch!  The team then collected up all the bags, crates and equipment and brought them up to the ute.

The group then took a leisurely walk back to the cottage and this gave everyone a chance to see more of the property and some of the work our other volunteers have done.

It was then time to socialize and have a relaxing lunch.

We always enjoy a visit from the Greenteam and today was another great day—fun and very productive. Plus we got a chance to meet a lot of nice new people and spend time with old friends.

A very special thank you to Air NZ Engagements executive, Shelley for once again organizing the Greenteam visit.  Shelley – we really appreciate your continued support and friendship.

And a BIG thank you to all the Greenteam members and their families and friends who gave up their Saturday to come help out today.  We really appreciated your enthusiasm and your hard work and you planted more trees than we expected!! THANK YOU!! The trees you planted will add to the growing biodiversity in the flourishing native forest for the community to enjoy for many generations.  What a wonderful legacy!!

We hope you and your family and friends will visit CUE Haven often to explore and enjoy your community native forest reserve you have all helped create. Looking forward to seeing you all again.

Thanks again!!