Aongatete Forest Project

20/08/2026

We're halfway - it's #10 in our '20 things for 20 years' series of posts - and this one features an actual post. We're talking about fences.

Back in 2017, a collaboration between AFP, DOC and the Tauranga Deer Stalkers Association built a fence in the forest. Not just any fence, a large protective ring around some rare plants: 𝘗𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘢, king fern, or para. King fern suffers from being absolutely irresistible to ungulate browsers (deer, pigs, goats) meaning it's all but vanished from the Kaimai. The discovery of a remnant enclave of king fern at Aongatete prompted the building of said fence as a deer exclosure, to allow the plants to not only survive but flourish.

Today, king fern are sharing their spores and popping up everywhere (inside the big, beautiful fence, that is). What is also obvious is the impact on the whole understory when the big browsing animals are excluded - EVERYTHING gets a chance to grow and the forest structure is healthy.

Images taken this week, in the same spot a few metres either side of the deer exclosure fence.

13/08/2026

This week's '20 things for 20 years' post is bought to you by the number 2 and the letter W.

W is for wharepaku (toilet) and we have 2 of them. They came to us second hand in 2021 from Wairere Falls, when that site got a much needed ablutions upgrade at the same time we were expanding our kohanga - win win. We had a spacious single wharepaku on site before that, designed and built by our clever trustees and volunteers in 2015. It's now located at the start of the Tuahu track.

Our loos have a chamber containment system, which is why we have enough room around the kohanga for a truck to navigate. Those tanks eventually get full, so far we've paid for the contents to be emptied once. Pete's Takeaways removed three large rocks in the bottom of one of the tanks - actual rocks. Nobody was keen to examine them closely to determine which side of the Kaimai ranges they were from.

We ask that visitors to the forest 'go before they go' - human number twos are no-one's favourite thing to find on a bush walk. In the last five years we've gone through an estimated 36 kilometres of 1-ply toilet paper (😮). In a hugely exciting move, our ops manager recently got a good deal on some 2-ply rolls, and the satisfaction rating from our regular volunteers has gone though the roof.

12/08/2026

Could the Bay of Plenty be Predator Free like Wellington with native birds in our back yards and Kiwi on the doorstep?

Space for Nature is thrilled to join with Forest & Bird - Tauranga in welcoming Celia Wade-Brown to speak on important conservation matters. As an MP for the Green Party and a former Mayor of Wellington, she has seen how Wellington has become predator free and will talk about Predator Free, local reserves, the Conservation Act, and her member's bill about National Cat Management.

Her talk will be followed by question time.

📅 Monday 17th August
⏰ 5:30-7:30pm
📍 Envirohub, 31B Glasgow Street Tauranga

This a free event, register here: https://events.humanitix.com/celia-wade-brown-on-conservation

10/08/2026

Two fantastic Bay Conservation Tauira Mahi courses coming up. To book visit https://training.bayconservation.nz/all-courses/

06/08/2026

We picked a cracker couple of days to do our post-baiting campaign round of rodent monitoring. This morning it was 0.8 degrees C at the kohanga when we set out to bring in the tracking tunnel cards that had been out overnight 🥶.

Results incoming shortly - the bait take was substantial so we know there were heeeaps (not a scientific measurement) of rats out there. Hoping for a single digit RTI % 🤞.

04/08/2026

Number 8 for our '20 Things for 20 Years' series is LOGOS.

Hardly the most important thing about the work we do but an important way to communicate to everyone what you're about nonetheless.

Back in the early days, when we were known as Aongatete Forest Restoration Trust, our first chairman John Howard sketched a cheeky wee fantail. That drawing became the first logo bird.

In 2016, a name change to Aongatete Forest Project saw a new birdie hero appear on the logo - a kōkako. A species that was last recorded in our part of the Kaimai forest in the late 1990's, it was an aspirational goal of the volunteers to one day see kōkako return here.

In 2021 it was noted that there were four other conservation groups in the wider region that also featured a kōkako in their logo (and legitimately so - they actually had the beautiful grey ghosts dwelling in their forests).

Why not feature a bird on our logo that was a particular success story for Aongatete? Titipounamu/rifleman are NZ's smallest bird and have flourished thanks to our ongoing pest control efforts. From a rare sighting of one in 2012 they are now everywhere in the forest. Sure, they're hard to hear and even harder to see (so you might have to take our word for it 😉), but these tiny birds are our special treasures and deserve their spot on our logo.

28/07/2026

Number 7 in our '20 things for 20 years' series is COUNTING.

OK, so we count lots of things at AFP. Volunteers, rodent footprints on tracking cards, trap checks, bait we put out, bait we bring back, how many slices of cake are left etc... But one of the best things that we count is birds.

Every October, volunteers do a proper 5-minute bird count in our forest. The results of this contribute to the huge annual Kaimai bird survey that has been running for many years.

Four years ago, Bay of Plenty Regional Council commissioned a professional monitoring survey of birds in both our forest and two nearby locations that didn't have any pest control. Basically, counting with scientific rigour that would show whether or not our efforts were actually making a difference.

The very cool outcome was that yep - we are 🐦🙌. Definitely great motivation.

Volunteer-led pest control has been underway in Aongatete Forest since 2007. Anecdotal evidence indicates that this work has had a noticeable impact on the number and variety of birds that call the forest home, especially in the last five or six years. Now, a new report backs up our

18/07/2026

Number 6 in our '20 Things for 20 Years' series is GREEN MISTLETOE.

Green mistletoe, 𝘐𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘴, is a native hemiparasitic plant that, due to historic vegetation clearance and possum browse, has basically disappeared from our ngahere.

We're keen to bring it back, not least because its flowers and fruit are an important food source for native birds, geckos and insects.

Mistletoe doesn't grow in soil, it's seed has to be inoculated directly on to a host tree. Birds would normally do this by pooping out the sticky seeds on to a branch.

Earlier this year, we bypassed the bird and went direct - tiny wee blobs of fresh mistletoe seed (gathered from near Rotorua) carefully applied, by hand, to several different host tree species in the kōhanga paddock. We have the relevant permissions from DOC for this activity.

One of the Māori names for green mistletoe is pikirangi. And look what we got the road to the project called 😉. We're quietly confident our reintroduction is going to be 👌!

10/07/2026

Our latest newsletter is out now 👇

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we’re sharing 20 posts over 20 weeks on our page, each one focused on a special aspect of our project.

17/04/2026

We had marvellous weather this morning for the Echo Walking Festival fungi walk. Plenty of macro photography going on, it's incredible what you can see once you zoom in on these mycological marvels.

So many of them are tiny, luckily we had 20+ pairs of eyes on the lookout! Big thanks to Kylie at Katch Katikati Inc for the fantastic event organisation and to Uenuku, our knowledgeable fungi guide.