Volunteers plant thousands of trees along NZ waterways

More than 50,000 native plants and trees have been planted along waterways across nine New Zealand regions since June as part of Sustainable Coastlines and ANZ’s Love Your Water Tour.

The ANZ Love Your Water Tour has visited 17 reserves from Whangarei to Christchurch and the West Coast in need of ecological restoration. More than 3,000 enthusiastic Kiwi planters have been involved.

The final stop on the 10-region tour will be at the Trimdon Reserve in Manukau on Thursday, 26 September where volunteers hope to plant almost 7,000 trees.

Sam Judd, Co-Founder of Sustainable Coastlines, says cleaning up waterways is imperative for preserving New Zealand’s water quality and is asking locals to join the group for the Tour’s last event.

“Cleaning up our waterways is an immense challenge and it’s an issue that affects everyone in our country,” says Sam Judd.

“Tree planting is one of the best and cheapest forms of addressing climate change. Our climate needs serious attention and it’s great to see Kiwis taking action through planting trees with us or on their own, and recently with the climate change strikes.”

The ANZ Love Your Water Tour aims to help reduce local pollution by planting trees and flaxes to soak up runoff, controlling erosion by stabilising river banks, creating habitat for improving native biodiversity, and helps remove pollution from the atmosphere.

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ANZ Managing Director Commercial and Agri Mark Hiddleston says ANZ is a keen supporter of Sustainable Coastlines and the environmental goals they are working to achieve.

“It’s been great working with Sustainable Coastlines for the 2019 ANZ Love Your Water Tour, planting thousands of trees along some of our most vulnerable waterways. We hope it educates and sparks conversation among the volunteers involved,” Mr Hiddleston says.  

Sustainable Coastlines, volunteers, students and ANZ staff will plant the ecological area located along the Papakura Stream, which flows into the Pahurehure inlet and into the Manukau Harbour, on Thursday.

“The beaches of the Manukau Harbour have some of the most consistently poor results for swimmability in Auckland so we know this work is needed for the community and the wider Auckland region,” Mr Judd says.

By the end of the Tour’s final planting on Thursday, the ANZ Love Your Water Tour volunteers will have planted almost 60,000 trees across New Zealand.

For media enquiries contact Siobhan Enright, 021 991 325

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