What happens next

When your application is approved your group will be allocated a Greater Wellington facilitator. Your facilitator will contact you and visit your group on-site, along with our Biodiversity Restoration Adviser.

At this meeting you will receive further information about how the Take Care programme works. This includes writing a small outline of the group’s location, the aim of your project and a calendar of events for your group, to be entered into the Community Involvement section of the Greater Wellington web site. You will also need to decide if you want to advertise your group’s contact person’s name and phone number on the web page. You may want to develop your own website and have a link to it on your Greater Wellington local groups web page.

A simple action or management plan for your site will help your group make good decisions about the project. A plan can cover the aim of the project, what resources are available within the group and from other agencies, and what actions need to happen in what sequence. The group can develop its own action or management plan with the help of the Take Care team or you can allocate part of your first year’s budget to employ a contractor to develop a simple plan. All groups must prepare a management plan for approval in their first year.

Your Greater Wellington facilitator will also introduce key members of your group to the Greater Wellington Biosecurity (Pest Plant) officer for your area and the biodiversity officer of the local territorial authority to plan site preparation for the first year’s planting. Good site preparation is fundamental to a successful outcome.

Your facilitator will pre-order eco-sourced plants for the following planting season. Please note that you might only have a limited number of plants, or it may not be possible to plant, in the first year as we may not be able to source appropriate plants until the following year. Your group members may want to collect seed for your project. With permits from appropriate landowners, collecting your own seed and either sending to a nursery to be grown or growing it yourselves guarantees that you will have plants available to plant into your project each year. The Take Care team are able to guide you on seed collection and obtaining permits from the landowner.