Nelson Trout Fishing Club tackles OMB in the Motueka Catchment

Eight members of the Nelson Trout Fishing Club attended the very successful BIG Community weeding event near Haycocks Bush on Sunday 11 August. Here they are. One of them is Jacob Lucas (far left), who is also a member of MCC’s Pest Management Group. They put in the hard yacka cutting and pasting OMB vines.

They could see there was much more work to be done so they decided to come back! So a group met up again in early September to do some more work on OMB in the area near Haycocks Bush. Here they are, happy in their work.

Jacob says:
“We really value and love the river and all the great recreational opportunities it gives us, particularly of course trout fishing and there’s a great angling spot nearby. We wanted to do our bit to help look after the precious environment on and around the river. I’m hoping this might inspire other community groups and river users to do the same. It was rewarding and lots of fun to do it together. Wouldn’t it be great if we could clear all the OMB from along the river.”

This is awesome, proactive community action from key recreational users of the Motueka catchment rivers. Not only does this help tackle an environmental problem, but it also helps strengthen the relationship between these anglers and the river, and the relationship becomes one based on reciprocity and manaakitanga (care).

Bruce Stare, one of the key organisers of the MCC BIG community weeding event had the following to say about the Nelson Trout Fishing Club and their efforts:

“I want to take my hat off to these guys. Not only did they turn up to our MCC event, but they’ve come to give back to the river again. We (The Motueka OMB Volunteers) and the MCC really love that others are joining in with us to tackle this major problem weed in our catchment”.

MCC would like to say a big tēnā rawa atu koutou (thank you so much) for your efforts Nelson Trout Fishing Club – we appreciate you!!!