Kia Ora Koutou,

It has been a couple of months since the last report and there has been considerable development and work completed over the spring period.

The latest round of wilding pine removal, funded through WRC was completed, with many thousands of pines cut and pulled over a large part of the central reserve area.

RBWG funded further pine removal work through generous private donations and via a grant from Kauri 2000. This enabled track development work to occur, opening up new hard to access areas to enable further conifer removal as well as provide new lines for predator control.

Two new lines have been established, and 50 new traps have been deployed along those routes. We also have been fortunate in having been able to recruit some new volunteers to regularly service the new lines and also provide back-up on established lines for when others are away.

The wilding pine and weed removal work as well as the development of the trapping network will continue next year as funding allows.

All the latest contracted work has been undertaken by the Predator Free Hauraki Coromandel Community Trust support team, and RBWG is very happy with both the quality and volume of work they have achieved over the year.

After a long 3 year wait DOC. have finally installed the directional signage in the reserve and 7 of these are installed at junctions along the public walking tracks and at the three entrances. This will give clarity and added safety to visitors walking and running the trails, and we thank DOC for providing and installing these.

The Summer maintenance programme has begun focusing on clearing and trimming the public walking tracks in readiness for the holiday season.

On behalf of all of RBWG I wish everyone a safe and relaxing holiday season!

Mā te wā

Dave Fitz