A community planting day at Te Matuku Bay Esplanade Reserve was the latest step in a long-term project to restore forest around the wetland.

“It was a massive effort by locals from around the island who headed out to the Te Matuku Bay site and planted 650 trees around a newly constructed fence,” says Waiheke Resources Trust manager Michael Maahs.

The 34 volunteers managed to get hundreds of trees into the ground in a matter of hours, but there’s been years of work behind the scenes to get to this point. • Erin Johnson

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