Restoration Services Panel

What is the planting cycle for projects? 

The earlier planting projects can be confirmed the sooner the seeds can be sourced, germinated, seedlings potted on, plants hardened and sent out to site to be put into the ground. For most species this process will take around 12 months, but for second year species such as kahikatea or tōtara this is around 24 months. We understand that the process takes time and will therefore attempt to put orders in as soon as we have approval. 

What are the benefits of restoring native bush? 

Aotearoa New Zealand was once vastly covered by diverse native bush which supported a unique and diverse ecosystem where our birds and insect species thrived. Restoring our native bush allows for many of these unique ecosystems to re-establish and provide space for our species to grow in population. Tree planting can improve the productivity of land, in particular rough areas that don’t grow good pasture. Trees help soil retention on steep slopes, provide windbreaks and shelter for livestock as well as providing landscape diversity and wildlife habitats.  

Indigenous trees are important for New Zealand’s ecosystem. They provide food and habitat for our native fauna species. Indigenous plant species are purpose-built for New Zealand’s climate, but many exotic / non-native species also do well here.  

Exotics and non-native species can be beneficial to the land as well as they are often faster growing so will nurse slower-growing native trees, encouraging the establishment of an eco-system a lot quicker. But choosing the right tree for the right place is very important.  

Read DOC's bush restoration guide. 

What are the benefits of exotics that we use? 

Greater Wellington uses a mix of poplar and willow poles for erosion control. Both poplars and willows grow quickly and have large root systems that bind soils and stop mass soil movement thus protecting pasture. They are also planted for shelter and shade, fodder, and timber.  

Poles are trees that are grown to a certain size before they are cut at the base of the tree and planted directly into the ground. The pole’s root system will grow at a faster rate than many of our native species, therefore stabilising hillsides and reducing chances of erosion. These types of species are useful in the gully of a hillside or on the side of a stream bank and are often a little more resilient so can withstand windy / more exposed areas. The species that are planted are carefully chosen to as more sterile species which reduces the possibility of them self-sowing and multiplying. 

What is eco-sourcing and why do we value it? 

The purpose of eco-sourcing native seeds is to ensure that seeds are gathered from and put back into the same area once they have germinated and grown into plants. The benefits of eco-sourcing seeds are that the species and genetics collected within the area will be planted back into the same district for genuine bush restoration of that area. When plants are taken from an area, they have the genetic coding to survive in that area and are more likely to withstand the climate, soil structures etc. 

What are ecological districts? 

Ecological districts and regions are areas and locations of New Zealand which contain specific physical traits such as geology, soil type, climate, topography and land use characteristics. 

McEwan (1987) describes ecological districts and regions below: 

“Ecological District: The definition of an ecological district depends on a thorough consideration of the topography, geology, climate, soils, vegetation and man-induced modifications of the area (Nicholls, 1979). Thus an ecological district is a local part of New Zealand where the topographical, geological, climatic, soil and biological features, including the broad cultural pattern, produce a characteristic landscape and range of biological communities (Park et al., 1983). 

Ecological Region: An aggregation of adjacent ecological districts with very closely related characteristics together form an ecological region. In some cases, a single very distinctive ecological district is given the status of ecological region to emphasise its uniqueness (Park et al., 1983).”  

McEwen, W. Mary; Biological Resources Centre (N.Z.), New Zealand. Dept. of Conservation. (1987). Ecological regions and districts of New Zealand. Wellington, N.Z.: Dept. of Conservation. https://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/science-and-technical/ecoregions3.pdf 

More on ecological districts can be found on the Department of Conservation website.

The importance of not mixing seed from different locations 

What is collected from one bush should be kept separate to what is sourced from another, rather than mixing the same species’ seed together from multiple locations. By keeping batches and locations separate it means that if it is found that a collection of seed was hybridised, the entire bag of seed would not have to be discarded, only the bag that was collected at that location. This also highlights the importance of supplying GPS coordinates for seed collection if hybridisation was suspected. 

What are risks in eco-sourcing? 

Gathering seed from recently planted species or from the edge of roads cannot guarantee the genetics of a species. Seed from plants on the side of roads are more likely to be cross pollinated with an exotic species causing hybridisation within the seed. Roadside and planted species often cannot be guaranteed to come from the local eco-district (unless known to be originally eco-sourced) and then still may have been crosspollinated with an exotic species if they are close to ornamental plantings. Birds and wind can very easily disperse seed distances of over 10 kilometres from the source. It is acknowledged that it can be difficult to know what will be produced from a seed but often after germination, a seedling will start to show the features of the parent plants. The best bet is to source from remnant bush which is further away from planted areas and gather from ten or more different plants to maintain genetic diversity. 

Permits for eco-sourcing seed 

For certain planting contracts with Greater Wellington, it may make sense to eco-source the seeds for plants directly from the location that they will return to for the purposes of restoration. To eco-source seeds on Greater Wellington Regional Council land a seed collector must have permission which may be directly granted within their contract, or the documents downloaded from our website:

Low Impact Collecting and Research Permit Application Form

This form should not be used if the activity involves commercial use of the material, collection of DNA samples (except for exotic species and/or purely taxonomic classification purposes), genetic modification,… Read more here

date_range Published 02 Nov 2021

Download now (PDF 147 KB) get_app

GPS mapping your seed sources 

When accessing seed that is being eco-sourced it is important to collect the GPS coordinates for the location. When supplying plants to Greater Wellington the location of seed may be required upon supply. Although the coordinates are not shared, the source of plantings may be necessary in future if there are any queries about species type or hybridisation of plants.  

Creating GPS coordinate points for eco-sourcing 

Degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS): 41°24'12.2"N 2°10'26.5"E  (this is the commonly used format).

To get the coordinates of a location in Map Plus: 

• Download the free app and open 
• Touch and hold on your/the location on the screen until the drop pin appear 
• Choose to save the data from the bottom of the screen – this can be kept on the app for future reference 
• Click on the name of the pin at the top of the screen which opens the coordinate data in DMS format OR click on the pin then ‘detail’ in the bottom right corner of the app 

To get the coordinates of a location in Google Maps: 

• Open Google Maps in the app on your phone 
• Touch and hold on your/the location on the screen until the red ‘dropped pin’ appears 
• At the bottom, the dropped pin should show the coordinates 
• The format of the coordinates in Google Maps uses decimal degrees (DDM) eg. (-41.2985383, 174.7906857) - convert the coordinates into DMS if this is needing to be used

To get the coordinates of a location in NZ Topo: 

• Download and open the app 
• Navigate to the location that you are sourcing from  
• Click on ‘XYZ/Go To’ which will bring up the coordinates 
• Choose the latitude and longitude in the top right box for the coordinates
• The format of the coordinates in NZ Topo uses decimal degrees (DDM) eg. (-41.2985383, 174.7906857) - convert the coordinates into DMS if this is needing to be used

Tips: 

• Latitude coordinates must start between -90 and 90 
• Longitude coordinates must be start between -180 and 180 
• Latitude coordinates are listed first before longitude