Rebecca Eivers

Free wetland restoration workshop to be held in Glenavy

Date:
Category: Events | Environment | Land Use | Wetlands | Farming
Zone(s): Lower Waitaki  

Join Dr Rebecca Eivers in Glenavy for a hands-on wetlands restoration workshop. Learn how to create, restore, and manage farm-scale wetlands.

Workshop details

Why wetlands matter in Waitaha

Wetlands are a vital part of Waitaha Canterbury's ecosystem. They provide a haven for native plants and wildlife, including rare and threatened species. They offer protection against flooding and can store large amounts of carbon. This makes them essential ecosystems for protecting the planet against climate change.

Approximately 90 per cent of wetlands (by area) have been lost in the last 150 years due to human impact, so the ones that are left need our help so they can prosper and be enjoyed by future generations.

Want to learn more about wetlands in Waitaha? Explore how they protect water quality, support biodiversity, and strengthen climate resilience.

What you'll learn at the workshop

You'll learn how to:

  • Recognise the right and wrong ways to restore and create wetlands.
  • Select the right wetland type, in the right place, for the right reasons.
  • Match wetland types to your farm goals — such as sediment reduction vs nutrient reduction.
  • Identify opportunities for wetland restoration on your property.

Rebecca's first hand experience

At the workshop, Rebecca will talk about her experience creating small and farm-scale constructed treatment wetlands (CTWs), which includes dealing with:

  • Coarse sediment capture (sedimentation ponds)
  • Fine sediment and particulate nutrient filtration (filtration wetlands)
  • Nutrient uptake
  • E. coli reduction
  • Re-wetting and restoring existing drained and degraded wetland restoring natural wetlands.  

Rebecca will discuss water quality and water quantity treatment and enhancing indigenous biodiversity within intensive farming and horticultural landscapes. This will include lessons learned and advice on how best to avoid the problems and issues she’s encountered while working with wetlands.

Rebecca aims to ensure attendees learn how to achieve “the right wetland (type), in the right place, for the right reasons,” and how to search for — and recognise — good opportunities for wetland re-wetting, re-creation, restoration, and construction in their focus areas/catchments.

“The overarching goal of my mahi is to support our natural environment, and our people, to be healthy and thriving in spite of land use and economic development pressures,” Rebecca said.

“Implementing the most appropriate and effective biological ecosystem solutions (usually wetlands!) to reverse environmental degradation and restore native biodiversity, while engaging with and empowering the local community, iwi, and landowners to work alongside me really lights me up,” she said.

This Set For Spring series will include future workshops on effluent management and silage pit management.

Contact our land management advisor Jess Cochrane on 027 272 0381 or jess.cochrane@ecan.govt.nz to sign up for this workshop.

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