Stories • Bluff Hill Motupōhue Environment Trust

About Gorse

Motupōhue shouldn't be yellow! Gorse was introduced into Aotearoa in the early 1800s as a fencing solution. It's spread uncontrolled across the country and is now a major plant pest. When native plants are given a chance, they'll grown through gorse, taking advantage of the nitrogen that gorse… Read more

Planting

Given enough time, most of the hill will naturally ‘rewild’ as forest birds spread native seeds. Since gorse requires direct sunlight to survive, the resulting native trees will overtop the gorse, ridding the hill of its gaudy yellow hue. But gorse will survive along any cut through the bush such… Read more

Trapping

Trapping is the foundation of everything else that we do. If we don’t control invasive predators, there’s no point in planting (possums love young plants); there’s no point in weed control; there’s no protection for flora and fauna. BHMET has a fleet of over 1,600 traps across Motupōhue. Of these… Read more

Nursery

We can't just head down to Mitre 10 to pick up a trailer full of plants for the hill. Not only would it be prohibitively expensive, they wouldn't be Motupōhue plants. And that really matters - we only plant 'ecosourced' plants - seeds are taken from Motupōhue, grown in our native plant nursery on… Read more

Automatic Traps

Traditional trapping is based on manual traps that need to be rebaited every 2-4 weeks. If a trap kills a predator just after rebaiting, that carcass makes the trap inert and is a stomach-churning mess when the trap is next serviced. Automatic traps automatically reset after every kill and dispense… Read more

Conservation Week Planting

Conservation Week was 5-11 September 2022. BHMET set out an ambitious target: to put 20,000 native plants into the ground during the week. With the help of corporate and individual volunteers, we beat our target! The focus was to plant the urban fringe - the 20m strip behind the residential area. Read more