Teams from ASB Bank have been volunteering at CUE Haven for many years and yesterday we were very happy to welcome staff from ASB’s Commercial Banking Property Finance department for the first time. 

The team arrived first thing in the morning and included Anna, Kayla, Rowan and Stephen. 

Because everyone was new to CUE Haven, we spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea.  Mahrukh then gave an introduction to CUE Haven and discussed future plans.

Thomas then gave a safety briefing and a description of the work planned for the day.

The plan for the day was to work on clearing some large areas of muehlenbeckia australis that was growing over trees.  The meulenbeckia is a native vine that grows up along the edges of regenerating forests and unfortunately it will completely cover and kill small trees unless it is controlled. 

We drove up to the top of the property and worked down.  The team quickly became adept at identifying the plant and going after it with loppers.

One of the big challenges with controlling the plant is that where you see it growing and where it actually comes from can be two different things.  Rather than just trimming the edges, we wanted to find where the source and cut it off as close to ground level as possible.  The team wasn’t shy about following the vines into the bush and cutting and pulling them out.

Sometimes dealing with the stubborn vines required teamwork.

As they moved down the race, they also had a chance to explore some of the property.  Rowan had visited CUE Haven in 2015 when his brother, Howard, had been a participant in a Duke of Edinburgh Hillary Award residential at CUE Haven. The pole the DOEHA team had carved in 2015 was sited on open grassland and Rowan had a challenge finding it a decade later amongst the growing trees.

At one point, the team traced back some vines to a big plant growing deep in the bush that was threatening an old totara tree. They found a way in and worked together to remove it.

The team continued down the track, searching out and cutting away as much of the vine as they could.

The very hard working team managed to clear vines over 1.5 km of road.  It was challenging work but the team stepped up and made a major difference. Thanks to their efforts the CUE Haven ngahere will continue to thrive.

Our many thanks to Kayla for organizing the day.

And a BIG THANK YOU to the entire team. We really enjoyed meeting and working with you and the many interesting conversations.  You’ve made a very valuable contribution to CUE Haven and we really appreciate it!!

We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and we look forward to having you all back for another productive day volunteering at CUE Haven and also for fun visits with your family and friends to explore more of CUE Haven – your community native forest reserve.

Thank You!! Thank You!!