CUE Haven has had a long and productive relationship with Unitec, a tertiary institution based in Auckland.  Over the years, students from a variety of disciplines have participated in projects at CUE Haven or conducted research work in the bush.

A group of students pursuing a Master of Applied Science degree visited CUE Haven as part of the field work for the Remote Sensing and GIS paper that is part of the degree requirements.  On 12 and 13 April, Associate Professor Dr Glenn Aguilar brought students Amy, Jayden, Jeff and Kawana to CUE Haven as part of their field work.

The objective of the field work was for the students to apply their knowledge and skills in developing maps showing the distribution of target species to show geospatial relationships between their locations and important environmental factors. The students developed a data field collection system using ArcGIS Field maps, gathered location data on selected species such as birds, insects on flax and trees for example as well as associated information found during the survey.

On the first day, Mahrukh gave a short introduction to the CUE Haven project and the students went on a walk through the bush to acquaint themselves with the property.

Richard, our beekeeper was also on site.  He earned his degree in ecology from Unitec several years ago and had studied with Glenn and was able to spend some time with the group as well.

The next day, the students learned how to use drones to gather imagery for processing in order to generate products including resolution 3D maps of the area and digital elevation models that provide needed information on the environment.

The group spent some time setting up and calibrating the drones.

A volunteer group from Rocket Lab was also on site that day and they were very interested in the students’ work and Glenn took some time to explain the purpose and objectives.

In spite of windy conditions and a bit of rain, the students managed to fly the drones and map the areas they had planned.

In doing this gathering of geospatial data, the status of important species and the ongoing change at CUE Haven can be monitored regularly by future students who will conduct similar field collection and drone flying exercises in future. This will contribute to the documentation of the wonderful progress that CUE Haven has made to ecological restoration in the area and provide a highly intuitive visualisation of the landscape.

As always, it was a pleasure meeting and working with and learning from the Unitec students and staff.  We wish the students all the best with their continuing studies and future endeavours. 

And a big thank you to Glenn for arranging the visit—looking forward to having you back soon with more students!