Repeat offender stealing plants from wetland

20 Sep, 2021

JULIA WADE

Young trees have been going MIA from a local wetlands with the disappering plants being yanked from their beds under the cover of darkness.

To date nearly 40 native trees have been taken from Langs Beach roadside and reserve, the plant-pulling thieves mainly targeting 60-80cm kowhai only days after the saplings were planted by members of environmental organisation, Wairahi Tracks Trust (WTT).

Trust planting coordinator, Dawn Morrison, says the theft has been occurring over the last six weeks and ‘is quite devastating’.

“It’s disheartening as we put such a lot of work into what we’re doing, it’s happened on three occasions now so seems like a repeat offender,” she says.

“We’re becoming more conscious of the theft and trying to work out what to do… even investigating whether to put cameras up but all of that ends up being awfully expensive.”

WTT is a fairly new eco-organisation, running for just over two years, and is focused on building tracks, developing wetlands and involved with ‘all sorts of ecological stuff’ within the Piroa-Brynderwyns environmental reserve.

Members have been developing two sites in Langs as part of a planting project called ‘Bridge to Bridge’, which encompasses a wetlands adjacent to the beach public toilets and a roadside reserve between Langs’ two bridges. The group’s planting scheme was made possible due to Whangarei District Council gifting 800 trees and plants to the group in 2020, with another 200 this year.

Six weeks ago when Morrison noticed empty dirt holes at the two planting sites where trees used to stand, at first she thought it was another team member removing dead plants.

“But no one had... at first I thought ‘I’m going nuts, I’m sure there was a plant there’, then after a while, I realise that yes, there was a plant there and now its gone!” she says.

“Its not just the new plants that are taken either, but ones that have been growing for over a year.”

A number of young cabbage trees which ‘were doing really well’ were also ‘just chucked aside’, and spade marks remain where the culprits dug for their quarry.

“They’re not even pretending they’re not taking them.”

Recently-planted trees have also allegedly been taken from a new subdivision in Matakana, although Mangawhai Tracks Charitable Trust chair Gordon Hosking says as far as he is aware, no plants have disappeared from local sites. Police have been notified about the thefts and a local security guard is now keeping an eye on the planting areas.

As the WTT team are on site during daylight hours, ‘every day since lockdown finished’, the thieves are believed to be lifting the trees under the cover of the night or early morning and Morrison wonders if the culprits ‘might know a little about plants’.

“I always thought gardners were good people, you expect them to snip a cutting but not take a whole lot of plants,” she says.

“What is disturbing though is that someone is watching us during the day before coming down and helping themselves… you start to get suspicious of everyone, I’d just like people to stop taking the plants.”

A flummoxed Dawn Morrison, Wairahi Tracks Trust planting coordinator, at one of the sites of the missing trees, marked with orange flags. At first Dawn thought she was going nuts ‘then after a while, I realise that yes, there was a plant there and now its gone!’ PHOTO/MELO ‘PUFF’ TITO

“We’re becoming more conscious of the theft and trying to work out what to do…”