June 4, 2009 – Wellington
Forest & Bird media release for immediate use

Forest & Bird awards Golden Spade to volunteer who planted 2400 plants in a year

Forest & Bird’s national Golden Spade winner is Wanda Tate, who single-handedly planted 2400 native plants in a year.

The retired teacher spent 920 hours at Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve, near Wellington, in the year to May 1, 2009, helping to transform what was once a dump and go-kart track into a wetland reserve.

Wanda keeps a log book of plants and the volunteer hours she puts in at the reserve. She started the log to prove to her children that she didn’t spend very much time at the reserve – but it proved her children’s suspicions were right!

The Golden Spade award tops a week in which she received a Queen’s Service Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her conservation work.

“I don’t play golf, I don’t play croquet, I don’t play bridge. All I do is go out and poke around in the reserve,” Wanda says.

The Golden Spade award marks World Environment Day on June 5.

Wanda started her volunteer work at the reserve in 1992 and is one of many Forest & Bird members who have rejuvenated a wasteland.

Wanda loves working in the reserve and she declares the area much better than her own garden. “I like the fact that it is a very quiet, relaxing area in the middle of an urban environment,” she says.

“It’s great being part of the environmental and ecological movement – you meet so many people who are so interesting and knowledgeable,” she says.

Wellington region Forest & Bird branches have been working at the reserve since 1984, and thousands of native plants have been planted. Many native birds are now seen at the reserve, including pied stilts and white-faced herons, and fish and shellfish numbers have risen in the Pauatahanui estuary.

Independent conservation organisation Forest & Bird has 50 branches around New Zealand, and most have revegetation projects in which thousands of native trees are planted every year.

Wanda will receive her Golden Spade award at Forest & Bird’s annual general meeting in late June.

ENDS

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