The Te Ahu a Turanga Alliance committed to ‘treading lightly’. Wherever possible, we aimed to leave the landscape in a better state than before we began.
Enhancing waterways
Our design contained 31 culverts and included 29 habitat-creating stream diversions to mitigate for the loss of 13.2km of intermittent and permanent stream. To offset the effects of stream loss we also planned extensive riparian enhancement and fencing of stream gully systems at four sites nearby. Riparian enhancement creates significant ecological benefits by improving stream habitat and water quality.
Ecological enhancement
Careful and considerate design reduced our potential impact on vegetation to 11.8ha, from an initial assessment of 30ha. In addition, we replaced the 11.8ha impacted with 45.6ha of new vegetation in targeted locations, enhancing the existing flora population.
We committed to ensuring that all new planted areas will be managed until they properly establish and will legally protect these areas in perpetuity. We also committed to fencing 48.3ha of existing forest to ensure the exclusion of stock wandering from nearby farmland.
As our project design and construction methods were refined, we looked for every opportunity to further reduce potential effects.
For more on the mitigation and management of environmental issues see our consents page.
Planting plan
Below is a snapshot of some of the plant species used on the project.
![View larger image [PNG, 1.5 MB]](/assets/projects/te-ahu-a-turanga/te-ahu-a-turanga-planting-plan.png){kind=link}