Kaitiaki approach helps rare sand daphne

Hunting for New Zealand’s native sand daphne (toroheke) which grows in dunes around Aotearoa can be near impossible in many parts of the country, but Nikki Maikuku has made it her mission to find the elusive shrubs and help restore them.

Toroheke or Pimelea villosa is nearly extinct in many areas of New Zealand, but through her volunteer work with Coastcare, on the Waikato’s west coast, Nikki has helped locate a stand of the rare plants at Kāwhia, taking seeds and cuttings to grow and replant.

“I got involved with Coastcare through a lot of the coastal plantings in our area and in doing that I also learned about the need, not only for people to do the planting, but also for growing the coastal species needed,” says Nikki.

Coastcare groups are involved in caring for beaches around the Waikato region. They are partnerships between the local community, iwi, district councils and Waikato Regional Council, working together to protect and restore our precious coasts. There are currently community Coastcare groups working at 24 beaches on the east and west coasts of the Waikato region.

Restoration planting is largely focused on two areas: stabilising the loose foredune areas with spinifex and pīngao, both native sand-binding grasses; and recreating native coastal ecosystems through backdune plantings of grasses, shrubs and trees.

Through volunteering, Nikki learned about the decline of toroheke around New Zealand and asked Waikato Coastcare West Coast Coordinator Stacey Hill if she knew of any plots of the shrub in the Kāwhia area.

“We have gone out three times now and sourced seed and taken cuttings from the stand in an effort to keep the species going and see what we can do with it in our area,” says Nikki.

Nikki and her friend, Jess, have also spent many hours gathering seeds from spinifex, pīngao and muehlenbeckia or pōhuehue, taking guidance on growing seedlings from Coastlands Nursery near Whakatāne.

“I guess we’ve just taken a kaitiaki approach. If we know things are there or there is work that needs doing and we can do something about it, then we will just go out and do it,” says Nikki.

They have now enlisted the help of local Kāwhia Moana Native Nursery to raise the seedlings they have sourced from the area.

“Through joining the plantings, we could see there was a lot of coastal projects in the area, and it made sense to try and grow some of the plants here in Kāwhia. We go down about once a week to work on them and we get a lot of help and direction from Coastlands Nursery,” says Nikki.

She still helps with plantings around the area and says the work is a great way to meet people of all different stages of life, and they often plant thousands of plants at a time.

And there is always a need for more people to help with collecting seeds or planting during the planting season, which runs between May and September each year.

“There are older people and people with their kids and teenagers doing it. It’s a nice way to broaden your horizons. For me it was a bit of a calling to give back and now we are part of something quite big,” says Nikki.