Barry Wood, describing why he started the restoration project:

“Some 15 years ago I became concerned at the number of people taking large numbers of cockles from Cockle Bay beach. I joined an Auckland Council community shellfish monitoring program and applied to become a volunteer fisheries officer.

It soon became clear that over-harvesting was one of the main problems but there was also an environmental effect. Flowing into Cockle Bay are two streams, one at each end of the beach. I found a FB page 'Friends of Cockle Bay Domain' and this led to Matthew Brajkovich who had a dedicated team of volunteers restoring this area.

You can’t work and get to know Matthew without getting excited about our environment and how through planting we can improve not only the environment but the water that flows into our Bay. Matthew’s original plan started down here at Cockle Bay but for a range of reasons he moved his efforts up to the Domain. So here we are now gone the full circle and our restoration project is underway!”

Julie Mitchell, CBRRA Secretary, explaining the CBRRA's involvement:

“Inspired by the work Cockle Bay Beach resident Barry Wood had already accomplished in caring for our local beach and surrounds and the efforts in planting and restoring Cockle Bay Domain by Matthew Brajkovich and a tireless band of community volunteers, we at CBRRA felt encouraged  to undertake further planting and restoration at the Cockle Bay Beach Reserve and the Pah Road and Windross tracks that lead to it. So, when the opportunity arose to make an application to the Howick Local Board under the recent community grant process, we jumped at the chance.

This is quite an involved process in that a considerable amount of reading, research and discussion was required  to determine the best procedure to deal with removal of weed matter and pest plants, the best plants to use in restoration planting, the best time to do this and so on and so on. Then the sourcing of plants and landscaping materials, obtaining quotes, calculating costs and verifying other information required by the Local Board that also must be included with an application under the Local Grant funding process. All this took some time and effort. We are delighted, very pleased and grateful that our application met with approval in September 2022.  And so it begins.

Before new planting, there is a massive amount of preparation to see to; including the removal of unwanted weeds, pest plants, mulching, etc.  This has already been started and we were thrilled to discover several large Nīkau Palms that had been hidden and smothered by privet along the Windross track. In this case, neglect has a positive -- as if a regular spray maintenance program had been adopted, these gems would not exist!  Look for the positive -- it’s there somewhere! The Nīkau now exposed to sunlight have opened their “wings” as if to say  'Thanks guys !!!'”