Looking after the lake

PLANTING PROJECT: Youngsters learn about keeping lakes in pristine condition during a community planting day.

Pouto School students and the wider community including the local iwi Te Uri o Hau and NorthTec students helped the Kaipara District Council and the Conservation Department to plant 500 native plants at Humuhumu Lake.

About 60 people turned out to help plant grasses, cabbage trees and flax around the lake.

The plants were supplied by Ray McLean and the council.

After the planting the group was rewarded with a sausage sizzle and steak and egg sandwiches prepared by the iwi.

The lakes in the area are home to native species such as the dwarf inanga not found anywhere else in the world.

Other species include long and short-fin eels, giant kokopu, black mudfish and the common bully.

The lakes have had to deal with pest fish and aquatic plant that have taken over in places – pest weeds such as hornwort, oxygen weed, bladderwort, alligator weed, and fish such as gambusia and rainbow trout.

Biosecurity officials recommend that equipment used in the lakes be rinsed in a solution of 200ml of bleach to 10 litres of fresh water to prevent transfer of pests from waterway to waterway. It is also recommended that stronger effluent runoff prevention measures from farmlands be put in place to help keep the lakes in pristine condition.

For more information go to the Biosecurity website at www.biosec urity.govt.nz or call toll free 0800-80-99-66.

- © Fairfax NZ News