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Outstanding beauty available for all


The Pauatahanui Inlet is aptly named The Jewel in the Crown of Porirua City. Photo Graham Craig


Porirua City, about half an hour north of Wellington in New Zealand, is an area that is home to some of the richest and some of the poorest people in New Zealand. The Rotary Club of Plimmerton has dedicated itself to raising the bar for the poorer communities with projects such as Computers in Homes, Reading in Schools, stocking the Salvation Army Foodbank, organising annual Christmas parties for disadvantaged kids, and many more.

Photo Graham Craig

A major project for the Club benefits the wider community and this entails constructing a Pathway, Te Ara Piko, around the Pauatahanui Inlet. The scale of this project is significant so Plimmerton Rotary and the Porirua City Council have been working in partnership. The Pathway runs along the northern edge of the Inlet through native salt marshes and wetland habitat – a nationally important estuary.

Both The Rotary Club of Plimmerton and Porirua City Council were recognised for their work on Te Ara Piko in the 2011 Encore Awards, co-hosted by the Department of Conservation, Wellington Hawke’s Bay Conservancy, Conservation Board and Greater Wellington Regional Council. The Encore Awards honour people going the extra mile to restore, protect and enhance nature and history, and enable others to enjoy it.

One of the pillars on the Pathway. Photo Graham Craig. 

The Council has committed significant funds to the project and several organisations, including the New Zealand Walking Access Commission, and Trusts have also donated generously. 

Club members advocated for the Pathway and acted as project ambassadors, promoting it at festivals, and establishing their own nursery.

Members and friends of The Rotary Club of Plimmerton pot grasses for future planting. Photo Graham Craig.

Councillor Denys Latham said that the partnership between the Council and the Plimmerton Rotary has been a successful one for many years.

“I congratulate Rotary and our Leisure Assets team for the great work they are doing. The club pushed hard for this Pathway, beginning in 2000, and the Council had to respond.”

Rotary Club members have assisted with fundraising and actively helped with revegetation plantings along the Pathway.

 

George Williamson, Operations Advisor to the New Zealand Walking Access Commission (left) and Philip Reidy of the Plimmerton Rotary Club during work to extend the Te Ara Piko - Pauatahanui Pathway - in April 2011. Photo courtesy Porirua City Council.

Members of The Rotary Club of Plimmerton plant grasses alongside the Pathway. Photo Graham Craig. 

Outstanding beauty available for all

 
 
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