Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

Bay of Plenty Regional Council has a Community Relations Strategy which aims to position council as an agile, can-do organisation which works collaboratively with its community.

One way council does this is by working with community groups to help them undertake environmental restoration projects. Recently, community collaboration delivered a real win-win, benefiting landowners and the environment at little cost.

A staff member heard that a large number of harakeke and pukio plants were being removed from the Lakes subdivision because they tended to lean over the walkways and create an ongoing maintenance cost. A few phone calls later resulted in staff and several landowners, who are engaged in restoration work through biodiversity or riparian management plans, down at the site. With the agency-owners permission, they trimmed off excess foliage and took them home to be transplanted in existing council-agreement areas. It is estimated the plants would have cost the landowners at least $12,000 to buy from a nursery.

I was delighted to hear about this plant recycling – a good example of community collaboration delivering benefits on a number of fronts.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please email me: [email protected] or phone: 07 579 5150.Or you can check out my website:www.janenees.co.nz