It's today!

Mara Kai Garden Party

The weather today is a bit unsettled but we will have a gazebo and the rain is very light and patchy so we are going ahead with our garden party today.

It's springtime and the garden is ready for new beginnings. Meanwhile, there's still some kai there and we'd like to invite you to share this on Friday November 19,

From 4 to 6pm there will be salad wraps made freshly from the best in the garden, and a time to talk about the vision for the garden as a community facility.

Is the price of vegies making too big a dent in the family budget? Help out at the Mara Kai and you can go home with some greens - and learn some tips to help get your own vegie garden started.

The garden is open for all to get involved in, share gardening knowledge and maybe learn to enjoy some new flavours!

Come and korero and share the kai @ 49 Redan Road

Between the Kaitaia College tennis courts and the GP Clinic

Ladies, a hat! All welcome!

Supported by:

Te Hauora O Te Hiku O Te Ika

Kaitaia Transition Towns

and the Far North Environment Centre

Contact:

Callie Corrigan 4084024

Rebecca Ranum 4093077

or Soozee 4081086

From Radio New Zealand National "Our Changing World" programme broadcast on Thursday, 18 November 2010:

Black Mudfish and Restoring Lake Kaituna

To listen to the broadcast online please click here

Black mudfish (Neochannus diversus) (image: Waikato University)

Nick Ling, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Waikato is an expert on New Zealand’s mudfishes, a group of five species that are part of the wider Galaxiid group of freshwater fishes. New Zealand’s mudfishes (PDF – note large file) are very unusual fish – when their wetland habitats dry out in summer they burrow into the soil and remain there, motionless, breathing air, until the first decent flood in autumn refills the wetland and washes them from their refuge. Early settlers in New Zealand were surprised to find live fish when digging vegetables from the earth. These cryptic, nocturnal fish were probably once the most abundant freshwater fish in New Zealand. However, the loss of more than 90% of our wetlands over the past two centuries has confined them to a few refuges, and three of them are endangered (PDF of recovery plan).

Farmer Andrew Hayes amongst regenerating natives (left), and biologist Nick Ling with Gee minnow traps for catching mudfish (images: A. Ballance)

Nick Ling takes Alison Ballance on a rural tour near Hamilton to look for a black mudfish, and to show her conservation efforts that are helping restore mudfish habitat. She meets Horsham Downs dairy farmer Andrew Hayes, and talks about his family’s very successful Care Group Efforts on Lake Kaituna (also know as Lake B), a small peat lake on their farm. She also talks with student Rebecca Eivers about sediment traps, being used to prevent sediment run-off into the lake, and with former student Amy McDonald who carried out a successful black mudfish translocation to Lake Kaituna.

Lake Kaituna is a successful peat lake and wetland restoration, surrounded by a productive dairy farm (images: A. Ballance)

Andrew and Jenny Hayes, and their sons Alastair, Rodney, Derek and Fred were awarded a Ministry for the Environment Green Ribbon Award for Rural Sustainability in 2007 in recognition for their care, effort and leadership shown to improve the health of the peat lakes in the Horsham Downs area (PDF).

This roadside ditch near Hamilton is still home to black mudfish, but they no longer occur in the large numbers they once did (as evidenced by an earlier successful catch). (Images: Waikato University and A. Ballance)

To listen to the broadcast online please click here

Email received from Ministry of Fisheries 17 November 2010:

The purpose of this email is to advise you that, pursuant to section 186a of the Fisheries Act 1996, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture has agreed to close Maunganui Bay to the take of all species of fish, aquatic life, or seaweed, with the exception of kina, for a period of two years from 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2012.

Please see the attached map of the area included in the temporary closure:

A copy of Fisheries (Maunganui Bay Temporary Closure) Notice 2010 is available online via the Ministry of Fisheries’ New Zealand Fisheries InfoSite (click here).

A public notice regarding the temporary closure will be published in The Northern Advocate on Saturday 20 November 2010.

South Pacific: Fragile Paradise

Click here to watch this episode online at TVNZ until 20 November

The South Pacific is on the face of it still a healthy ocean. We depend on it, over 60 percent of the world’s fish catch comes from the Pacific, but like all oceans it has little or no protection so it may not stay healthy much longer. So what is being done to preserve its natural treasures, and what does the future hold for this fragile paradise?

This episode focuses on the environmental problems facing the South Pacific. Climate change threatens many islands, because they are low-lying and could be engulfed by rising seas. On Tuvalu, seawater bubbles up through the ground at high tides, making evacuation a realistic possibility. Oceans absorb half of all atmospheric CO2, but this turns them acidic, preventing sea creatures from building calciferous shells. The most immediate threat is overfishing. Reef damage by boats and tourism affects fish populations, but coral gardeners in Fiji have a solution. They harvest and grow corals artificially, then transplant them back to damaged reefs.

Different fishing methods are compared, from sustainable pole and line fishing practised by Solomon Islanders to long-line fishing, which has endangered albatross populations across the region. Commercial fishing vessels lay huge purse seine nets, large enough to catch 150 tonnes at a time. Cameras follow the action inside the net as a haul of yellowfin and skipjack tuna are brought to the surface. Greenpeace's flagship Esperanza patrols the high seas, unprotected pockets of ocean where fishing is unregulated. Less than 1% of the Pacific is protected, and yet up to 90% of its large predatory fish may have been lost already.

A Fijian community reef is proof that protection could yet work. Tourism benefits from divers prepared to pay for close encounters with bull and tiger sharks, and local fishermen benefit from increased stocks.

Click here to watch this episode online at TVNZ until 20 November

The map below represents the results of the Doubtless Bay freshwater quality samples taken on 12th November 2010. For more information on the monitoring programme and all the results, please click here.

Bioenergy Association of New Zealand - Workshop

‘Biogas as a Transport Fuel’

18th November 2010

HERA House, 17-19 Gladding Place, Manakau City, Auckland

The workshop will showcase innovative biogas vehicle fuel technologies and feature New Zealand based biogas experts speaking on the topics of biogas purification, biogas logistics, biogas vehicle conversions, gas vehicle fleet management as well as financial and legal aspects. The event will feature a field trip to a biogas vehicle fuel pilot project, providing conference participants with an opportunity to experience the technology face to face in the field. The workshop will be an excellent opportunity to meet with people in the industry and learn from their experiences. It will help biogas resource owners to better evaluate their energy potential and future options for biogas use in vehicles, and provide them with a better understanding of framework conditions that provide for the successful and economically viable use of biogas in vehicles.

For more information on the workshop programme, click on the PDF download link below:

Biogas workshop programme.pdf

To download the workshop registration form, click on the link below:

Biogas as a Transport Fuel registration.doc

If you would like further information please click here to contact the Programme Administrator, or visit: www.bioenergy.org.nz and www.biogas.org.nz

Taitokerau Organic Producers Society is holding a

 Hui and Field Day

@

 Peria on Sunday November 14, 10am to 3pm

Come along and share your gardening experience at the property of Sam and Steff Kelly, currently under the care of Soozee who is delighted to be putting in a summer garden on this lovely riverflat site.

• pruning demonstrations.
• seed-sowing
• seed-saving
• Hua parakore: walking the talk of sustainable organic food production in the Far North

To find the place from State Highway 10, turn inland at Taipa up the Oruru Road. Nearly 14 kilometres inland and you're there, just before the Peria School. The TOPIS banner will be at the gate.

All welcome

for more information call Soozee on 09 4081086

or email soozee@ecocentre.co.nz

Is your homes built before January 2000?

If YES then you may be eligible for

FREE INSUALTION WORTH UP TO $3500 FOR YOUR HOME

Conditions apply:

• House built before Jan 2000
• You own & live in the home
• You hold a current Community Services Card (if you do not hold a current card you may still be entitled to a subsidy, please see details below)

+ one or more of the following:

• Health issues
• Elderly owners
• Young children
• Overcrowding
• Maori

Otherwise as long as your HOME or RENTAL PROPERTY was built before 2000 Healthy Homes Tai Tokerau can offer between 33% to 60% EECA subsidies towards insulating your house.

KEEP SUPER COOL THIS SUMMER & BE READY TO BE WARM AS TOAST BEFORE NEXT WINTER

Reap the health rewards of a warmer drier home and put more $ in your back pocket for what you want to spend it on.

For further information contact Healthy Homes Tai Tokerau on:

09 408 1092

Click here to go to the Healthy Homes Tai Tokerau website

To download an application form please click on the PDF link below:

healthy_homes_app2010new.pdf