There’s a lot happening in the park to support people’s recreation enjoyment and restoration of the environment.

At the heart of the vision for restoring the environment of this and other parks is partnerships with mana whenua and collaborations with community.

Toitū Te Whenua Parks Network Plan 2020-2030 (Toitū Te Whenua) is our Reserves Act statutory management plan. Its vision is ‘Restoring healthy ecosystems for the benefit of people and nature’. To do this it provides policy directions and identifies many actions for work over the coming years. These pages outline some of the work that has been taking place on plan actions since 2020 and also ongoing volunteer programme work contributing to restoration and recreation in the park. You can read Toitū Te Whenua here if you're interested.

We are grateful for the work of volunteers who help in kaitiaki and manaaki, guardianship and support activities of the land or whenua, and education activities in parks. Restoration activities and working more with communities are the core focus of this Plan because ‘He waka eke noa, we’re all in this moving forward together’. You can read about the great conservation and restoration work taking place in the park below.

What's in a name?

Queen Elizabeth Park (QEP) lies between two main streams or ‘awa’, the Whareroa and Wainui. Whareroa means ‘long meeting house’ and Wainui means an abundance of water. For mana whenua and others, the park and the broader area are known as ‘Whareroa’. Restoring the environment to better states of health and biodiversity are the focus of a lot of work in the park, including wetland rewetting work which will see some of the previous ‘abundance of water’ returned.

There is action in Toitū Te Whenua (Action A356) to work with mana whenua to identify a new name for the park through statutory processes. Restoring other original place names within the park is important too.

Picture of a bollard giving track directions in QEP
A wetland in Queen Elizabeth Park

Since commercial grazing ended the formerly grazed areas of QEP are showing remarkable recovery through natural processes of restoration and a lot of restoration work by many people. Our park rangers have been busy implementing the actions of Toitū Te Whenua (Parks Network Plan) and making a lot of access and recreation activity improvements.

Updated September 11, 2023 at 11:44 AM

Get in touch

Phone:
0800 496 734
Email:
info@gw.govt.nz