Wednesday 11 September 2013

Te Ara Piko Pathway Award a Natural!

The Te Ara Piko Pathway around the Pauatahanui Inlet is rapidly becoming a highly awarded project, In November 2011 both Plimmerton Rotary and the Porirua City Council won the Recreation Volunteers Award in the Encore Awards.

In 2012 Porirua City Council received a Highly Commended Award for Excellence in Compliance for Te Ara Piko. This award recognised Greater Wellington consent holders who exceeded their compliance requirements to reduce or avoid adverse effects on the environment.

On Monday 19 August 2013, Plimmerton Rotary won the Heritage and Environment Category of the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards for Te Ara Piko Pathway at a prestigious awards ceremony held at Pataka in Porirua.
 
The idea of having a pathway around the Pauatahanui Inlet was first mooted in 2000.  It was not until 2005 that any visible work was evident and the vision became a project known as the Te Ara Piko Pathway.

The project has been developed jointly between Plimmerton Rotary and the Porirua City Council with both partners being enthusiastic supporters from the start.

Ron Lucas, President of Plimmerton Rotary noted how special it was to have been nominated for this award by Porirua City and that, by receiving it, the work of both project partners was recognised.

Around the world, Rotary is involved in projects that are designed to make a difference to people’s lives in all sorts of ways. This project is unique in that it is jointly undertaken by a territorial authority and Rotary with the objective of giving everyone access to a beautiful part of Porirua City for generations to come.

There is a long way to go on this project as it works its way around the Pauatahanui Inlet but already the completed sections are proving to be well used and as the Pathway mellows, the attention paid to heritage and environmental values as recognised by the Wellington Airport Regional Community Award 2013 is becoming increasingly evident.

To celebrate, several Rotarians, Inner Wheelers and even a small person, gathered at the project’s Ration Creek nursery for the final planting of the year. Several were deployed to Ration Point to plant more Oi-Oi grasses and release those already planted.

While others busied themselves at the nursery itself, weeding around the young plants that will be ready for planting out next autumn.

Hard work like this deserves its reward so a morning tea break was very welcome.

And although it was tea and coffee and not champagne, there was a moment of celebration when mugs were raised to the extraordinary vision of having the Te Ara Piko Pathway completed around the Pauatahanui Inlet.
 

Written by Phillip Reidy