Fern Valley is a small piece of bush belonging to the kids of Whangarei Heads school.
It is very important to them, and the site of many games and much hut building. It is a super cool asset for the school and the kids, but it is under attack from weeds like cotoneaster, eleagnus, agapanthus and tuber ladder fern. It was closed for business for two days recently as the first part of a bigger project to deal to invasive weeds around the school got underway.
Weed Action and a group of 20 keen Northtec students went along to help kick off this weed project, tackling cotoneaster, eleagnus, wild ginger, agapanthus, and Madeira vine, at the school entrance and in Fern Valley. The school’s teachers and parents believe that the natural environment of the school should reflect the school’s environmental values and commitment to helping protect the incredible forest on our doorstep, so the weeds must go!
Once the bigger, nastier stuff is dealt to in Fern Valley, the plan is then to hand over some of the responsibility to the kids, so that they can help us plan and tackle the hands-on management of the weeds that are a threat to their special place.
This was just the first step of many in ridding the school of unwanted weeds but it is great to see just what a difference a day can make.
