By Alina Suchanski

Reading time: 11 minutes 

The Orokonui Ecosanctuary, located 20 km north of Dunedin is an ecological island wildlife reserve, and a testament to what can be achieved by a group of ordinary citizens with passion and dedication to a cause. That cause is environmental protection, and their mission is no less than “to restore the Orokonui Valley to what it was like before humans arrived”. Alina Suchanski tells the story.

On State Highway 1, just a few kilometres north of Ōtepoti/Dunedin, lies a small seaside settlement of Waitati inhabited by artists, alternative lifestylers, activists and greenies. To the east of the village lies Orokonui Valley. The primeval forest that would’ve once covered this area was cleared for farming at the beginning of last century. Dissected by a creek that meanders into the Orokonui Lagoon, the valley – home to the Orokonui Ecosanctuary – is now covered in regenerating native bush.

The idea was germinated in 1982 by a group of people passionate about conservation who in 1983, formed the Otago Natural History Trust (ONHT). The original four members of the group were businessman Les Cleveland, zoologist John Darby, reporter Neil Harraway, and plant ecologist Dr Ralph Allen.

The group wanted to save New Zealand native birds from extinction but couldn’t find a suitable site near Dunedin on which to establish a huge forest-enclosing aviary. Their initial proposal for a sanctuary at Orokonui lapsed, and the group disbanded. In 1995, the trust’s only remaining member, Dr Ralph Allen revived the proposal. His perseverance was pivotal in protecting thousands of hectares of native forest, shrublands, and coastal vegetation throughout Otago, Southland and the Kapiti Coast, and he was the driving force behind the efforts of the ONHT to establish Orokonui Ecosanctuary. In 2011, he received the Queen’s Service Medal for services to conservation.

Also instrumental in the creation of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary was leading ecologist, botanist, and author Diane Campbell-Hunt, a specialist in sustainability issues in community biodiversity initiatives.

However, that the sanctuary exists in its present form is nothing short of a miracle.

The starting point was obtaining a concession from the Department of Conservation (DOC) to use 230 hectares of regenerating native bush at the Orokonui Conservation Area. “I negotiated primarily with the Otago Conservator, Jeff Connell,” Dr Allen tells me. “Initially sceptical, after several rounds of negotiation Mr Connell agreed to lease the land to ONHT if we could show that we’d raised money for the predator fence. Once that had been achieved, the process was very straightforward.”

The fundraising for the 9 km predator resistant fence, and later a state-of-the-art visitor centre, were incredible achievements, primarily driven by the inaugural general manager of the sanctuary, Chris Baillie. Funding for the $1.74 million fence came from three main sources: the Southern Trust, the Community Trust of Otago, and the Lottery Grants Board, with a number of smaller donations making up the total. In addition, the Otago Regional Council had allocated $1 million for ecosanctuary development including pest eradication, building tracks, aviaries, planting of native species and other restoration costs.

An appeal was launched in November 2005, followed by two public fundraising campaigns in 2006-2007 in which the public was urged to donate New Zealand 5-cent coins (about to be withdrawn at the time), while a “Sponsor a fencepost” campaign was run in conjunction with the Otago Daily Times (ODT) newspaper.

Of the 307 hectares allocated for the ecosanctuary, 230 ha was DOC stewardship land, 18 ha was part of a pine plantation purchased by the ONHT, and the rest was gifted by neighbouring farmers, Graeme and Marie Bennett.

The fence was completed, and the sanctuary officially ‘closed’ on Sunday, 1 July 2007. Once the land was fully enclosed, pest eradication began during which 4000 wilding pines were removed from the top area, 800 possums were trapped, as were all stoats, weasels, ferrets, cats, mice, and rats.

The local Māori rūnaka (Southern Maori dialect for tribal council), Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki became supporters of the trust and gave the sanctuary a Māori name ‘Te korowai o Mihiwaka’ (the cloak of Mihiwaka), referring to the location of the ecosanctuary at the foot of the Mihiwaka hill (561 m).

The next step was to build a carpark and visitor centre, which required another huge fundraising effort. Donations came from the public, some from local businesses, and a large grant from what was then the Prime Minister’s Fund.

October 23rd, 2009 was a proud day for the ONHT when the trust’s chairman, Dr Ralph Allen officially opened the Orokonui Ecosanctuary’s visitor and education centre.

The $2.2 million environmentally sustainable centre was designed pro bono by Dunedin architect Tim Heath. It was constructed from shipping containers linked by a glass atrium, featuring double glazing, a concrete slab for thermal mass, solar hot water, natural ventilation, and its own rainwater and wastewater treatment systems (ODT, 2009).

On a sunny winter’s day, as I enter the impressive modern building housing the visitor centre and café, Amanda Symon, the General Manager of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary meets me at the information counter and gives me a brief introduction into its operation.

She tells me that once the 9 km fence was completed and all the predators eliminated, nature began to regenerate and Orokonui became a safe haven for New Zealand’s endangered native species.

Several of those species were translocated to the safety of the ecosanctuary, including the South Island kākā, saddlebacks (tīeke), tuatara, Otago skink, jewelled gecko, robins, kiwi and tākahe. “Most of the species are doing well and breeding successfully, particularly kiwi and robins,” Symon assures me.

“The ecosanctuary includes a 15 ha kiwi creche area at the top of the sanctuary,” she explains. “The species of kiwi that we work with is the Haast Tokoeka – one of New Zealand’s most threatened. We work with DOC as part of Operation Nest Egg, where DOC staff take kiwi eggs from the wild and incubate them. We raise them to a point where they are large enough to fend off a stoat, and then return them to DOC to be released on predator free islands.”

In May 2015, the Orokonui tuatara made the news when three young ones hatched after an astonishing 24-month incubation period. This was believed to be the first time in 500 years that tuatara have hatched in the wild, in the South Island.

But there have also been heart-breaking setbacks. In June 2015, a stoat incursion completely annihilated the population of about 50-60 saddlebacks.

The establishment and operation of the sanctuary would not have been possible without the many hours of volunteers’ work and community support. According to Symon, the volunteer programme contributes around 1000 hours of work per month. “It takes a lot of work to keep the sanctuary predator free, regularly checking the fence and maintaining a significant monitoring and trapping network.

“Orokonui employs 25 staff, most of them part-time. Our volunteers are working alongside a small skilled staff of rangers, and our conservation manager, Elton Smith. The sanctuary is used as a research base for Otago University students and has a conservation education programme catering for 6000 school kids a year,” she says.

I booked a 1-hour guided tour of the ecosanctuary where waterways are protected by screened culverts nicknamed ‘watergates’, while pedestrian access is through the double-gated predator exclusion fence, reducing the risk of predator incursion. My guide, Hannah, tells me that Orokonui in Māori means a “great place of great well-being”, and it also refers to the name for the 28th night of the moon cycle, or Maramataka.

She takes me to the jewelled gecko enclosure where several bright green lizards are sunning themselves amongst the rocks. Next, we stop at the Otago skink home, also nestled amongst a pile of rocks.

We stroll over a grassy patch, where I’m surprised to see a takahē walking around like a domesticated chicken. These wild birds were thought to be extinct until rediscovered in 1948, in Fiordland’s Murchison Mountains. The two pairs of tākahe resident at Orokonui came from the Takahē Breeding Centre at Burwood near Te Anau.

Finally, my guide takes me to a kākā viewing platform, where we watch a couple of these large parrots compete with opportunistic blackbirds for access to the feeder.

The one-hour tour ends too quickly, and we only just touched the surface of this amazing place. I leave with a solemn resolution to come back soon and spend more time exploring it.

The ambitious goal of restoring the Orokonui Valley to the way it was before humans arrived won’t happen overnight. It’s an intergenerational project and it may take a hundred years or more to reach that goal. However, the Orokonui Ecosanctuary is a valuable asset for Dunedin that will bring back lost natural heritage, while providing wonderful opportunities for education, recreation, and research now, and for future generations.

 

Photos: Alina Suchanski

Sources: 1. Orokonui Ecosanctuary, Wikipedia 2. & 3. Dunedin ecologist swept to her death; Proud event for ecosanctuary, Otago Daily Times 4. orokonui.org.nz

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