Around 4000 seedlings culled in challenging weather conditions. By Frances Hancock

The final tally for our May 2015 community-led, Council-supported working bee was a whopping 70 bags! An estimated 4000 mangrove seedlings were culled from the Manukau Harbour along Kiwi Esplanade foreshore in Mangere Bridge.

Around 50 residents braved the driving rain and cold temperatures to make the working bee a huge success. In a few hours this bunch of hardy locals did the equivalent of around three weeks voluntary labour (including prior planning, onsite coordination, and follow-up the next day).

A huge proliferation of seedlings this year has caused concern among residents and prompted collaborative community action. As a result, a strong team decided to work together to ensure a well-coordinated effort. Members of MB Residents and Ratepayers, Friends of the Farm, Mangere Bridge Community Network, Ambury Farm Park, and Auckland Council shared responsibilities before, during and after the event.

People helped in different ways, including checking tides, coordinating Council support and local volunteers, delivering notices to mailboxes, monitoring activity on the day so everyone was safe and followed Council requirements, culling the seedlings, washing down tired volunteers, picking up bags along the Esplanade, baking muffins and documenting the efforts of all - in numbers and through stories.

“What a great community we have,” said Carol-Anne Armitage, a local resident known to many and one of the coordinators of the working bee. “All ages lent a hand, from young to old, including youngsters from Brownies, Guides, Scouts and Soccer Clubs to mention a few. Everyone worked very hard for two hours, knee deep in the mud, some having to go out quite a distance and come back with their heavy buckets and basins full of seedlings to tip into bags and place ready for Janine and Darren to pick up.”


This year Friends of the Farm has been promoting a “my patch/our patch’ approach to encourage residents to help take care of some place in Mangere Bridge that means a lot to them.

Patch leaders are local residents willing to join us in showing leadership. In the case of mangrove working bees, they help either by getting in the mud or monitoring work from the shore, and by encouraging their neighbours and others to join in.

After two successful working bees, we’ve now identified patch leaders along a good stretch of Kiwi Esplanade. And more are coming forward. “I love this "adopt an area" idea,” replied one Neighbourly writer who lives locally. “We have a special spot where we love to swim during the summer. So it would be cool to adopt that [area].”

This effort builds on a long history of collaborative community action in Mangere Bridge and seeks to encourage the next generation of community volunteers.


Friends of the Farm is now creating a database for community working bees, so we can more quickly and easily coordinate volunteer efforts across the community, not only for mangrove seedling removal but also for foreshore and stream clean-ups, and other activities. 


Community Comes Together- Sweet Talks 2015

By Justine Skilling

Good food, good conversations and good ideas were shared at the second Mangere Bridge community Sweet Talks earlier this month. A crowd of around 50 passionate, enthusiastic locals gathered at the Ambury Farm barn, ready to share ideas for creating a more caring, connected and wastewise community and to hear about what Friends of the Farm have been up to over the past year. 

On arrival, guests contributed events to a Mangere Bridge community calendar, a project we’re planning to get off the ground over the next year.  By way of an icebreaker, Frances Hancock (our facilitator for the evening) created an imaginary map of Mangere Bridge in the room and asked us to stand where we lived and where we felt “our patch” was.  This encouraged conversation with neighbours about areas that’re special to us in our community and got us thinking about how we might take responsibility for looking after them in some way.

Janine Nillesen gave an overview of the past year and the work Friends of the Farm have been doing in the community to create connection and foster care for the environment.  She reported back on initiatives that were suggested in last year’s Sweet Talks and have since come to fruition, such as the soft plastics collection, our facebook page, the Spring foreshore clean up, and planning for an annual community picnic to be held in February. 

In keeping with our Sweet Talks tradition, we created a café together in the room, complete with long tables, candles, flowers and delectable desserts (thanks to Donna Hansen, our local caterer).  Our wonderful volunteer café staff swept in to take hot drink orders and the conversation began.  Ideas for projects tackling household waste and fostering community storytelling were on the menu, along with general suggestions for making Mangere Bridge a more caring, wastewise, connected community.    

Once again, the group came up with some fabulous, creative ideas, including a mid-Winter Barn Dance, fruit trees in community spaces, and holding a swap/ recycle meet.  There were lots of requests for more information about what to do with different types of rubbish and more communication from our group about what we’re doing and how to get involved. People would also like to find ways to connect children and older people with these community initatives.  

Several people offered to join our group and help to make some of these things happen over the next year. To help get things rolling, we've already begun work on a community database of volunteers.

Thanks to everyone who came and contributed ideas- It was a lovely night “communicating with local people who care about the community”, as one participant said.  Keep an eye out for information about upcoming events and opportunities to volunteer. 

Mangere Bridge Festival diverts over 90% of its waste from landfill

by Justine Skilling

Friends of the Farm had the pleasure of passing on our WasteWise mantel to younger members of our community at the annual Mangere Bridge Food and Wine festival held in April 2015. With the efficient oversight of Meredith Fountain (Friends of the Farm) and the supportive leadership of Kate Adams (Mangere Bridge Village Progressive Business Association), the boys from Onehunga Mangere Football Club did a sterling job manning the three bin stations for the duration of the event, helping people to sort their rubbish into recyclables, compostables and landfill.

“What an incredible and diligent crew they were and a pleasure to work with” says Meredith. “I hope there will be many more opportunities to work together.  The boys showed themselves to be excellent ambassadors for zero waste. We couldn’t have done this without them and are enormously grateful for their help.  They were all so willing to learn and to put our WasteWise commitment into action in a friendly and approachable way”.

With our combined forces, we managed to beat last year’s very high target, achieving a 91.8% diversion of waste from landfill! Producing only 11kg of waste at an event involving over 1500 people is a remarkable achievement.

Thanks to all the vendors who chose compostable packaging over styrofoam, which greatly reduced the volume of waste produced at the event.  Thanks also to Steve Rickerby of We Compost, who organised the bins at short notice and disposed of all three streams of waste. Special mention also goes to the St Peters students who helped to set up the bin stations before the festival. 

Festival-goers also demonstrated their commitment by sorting their rubbish into the correct bin.  As a result very little litter was left on the ground. It was fantastic to see a wonderfully diverse crowd showing their willingness to embrace our zero waste goals for community events in Mangere Bridge.