Lake Waikare Restoration

Auckland/Waikato Fish and Game in association with the Department of Conservation have since 2006 conducted a number of wetland restoration and creation projects around the margins of Lake Waikare. These works have been designed to restore create and enhance wetlands on highly modified public conservation land, often in areas which had previously been drained and grazed.

The first step in these projects usually involves fencing, bunding and contouring the surrounding areas to hydrologically separate the systems in order to minimize the chances of plant and pest fish invasion. All our systems are ephemeral and solely reliant on rainwater which brings multiple advantages from both an ecosystem productivity and management perspective. Ephemeral shallow water wetlands are precisely those which in the past been drained and converted to pasture and are critical for sites for both indigenous and introduced avifauna species.