Promising bird counts accent festivities at Tara Iti

 

The golf course at Tara Iti Golf Club will not open until 1 October 2015, but club owners and management will celebrate its progress – the next stage in its ‘nesting’ process – with a gathering of founders, friends, family and locals mid-April.

“We at the club would like to sincerely thank the local community for the support they’ve shown this project, particularly in the lead-up to this event,” said Siobhan Durcan, human resources/communications manager at Tara Iti GC.

“We have hired a number of locals to work during the event, and we’ve seen a really positive response from many members of the local community who have kindly offered their homes as rental accommodation for guests attending the event.”

Club manager Matt Guzik echoed Durcan’s statement, adding that 50 event staff and 55 event caddies will work the April event, complementing the club’s 30 permanent staff.

“This doesn’t include all the contractors and tradesmen involved in ongoing construction, development and event activities here – and we’ll be adding additional jobs in October, once we’re open,” Guzik said.

“In addition to home rentals, the influx of guests over the weekend should provide a nice economic boost to B&Bs, the transport sector and a flock of other local businesses.”

Fairy tern prominent 
Avian references abound at Tara Iti GC, which is named for the New Zealand fairy tern, a bird species that has spent several decades on the critically endangered list. The club logo features a fairy tern in flight, naturally.

While this April event has been several months in the planning, it will come on the heels of encouraging avian news.

According to Gwenda Pulham with the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, 39 fairy terns were assessed at the beginning of the 2014-15 season. That figure is now over 40, to 43 – a small but appreciable increase for such a critically endangered bird. (Pulham reported the dotterel count also reflected a significant population increase over the last two years, from 231 to 275.)

Durcan explained that, upon acquiring this property, club founders established a charitable trust – the Te Arai and Mangawhai Shorebirds Trust – to conserve and protect fairy terns and other threatened, at-risk shorebirds on the Mangawhai Wildlife and the Mangawhai Marginal Strip. In addition to sourcing and providing funds necessary to the preservation, protection and fostering of these shorebirds, the Trust is charged with actively promoting growth in the number of threatened shorebirds.

Protecting breeding sites
While the fairy tern was once widely distributed around the North Island coast (and the eastern South Island coast), breeding is now restricted to only four sites. The Mangawhai-Te Arai area, beyond which Tara Iti Golf Club is situated, is one of those four sites.

The Tara Iti GC property (indeed, the entire shoreline stretching north from Te Arai Point) has long been home to dense, non-native tree cover that provided shelter to all manner of fairy tern predators. The clearing and development of Tara Iti GC, in addition to selective clearing for housing sites, has played a major role in the marked diminishment of these predators – and the uptick in fairy tern populations.

“These new counts are great news. They corroborate what we’ve been hearing on the ground – that it was a healthy breeding season for the fairy tern,” said Tara Iti GC founder Ric Kayne. “It appears our cleaning up the forest has removed many of the fairy tern’s predators. For that we must thank the diligent work of local rangers in helping to make this happen.”

This community effort has extended beyond the borders of Mangawhai. According to Guzik, Auckland-based Parkland Products – a distributor of golf course equipment – recently donated a Toro Workman vehicle to the cause. It will be dedicated to Trust activities.

Economic benefits
On the golf course itself, the club’s caddy programme has involved dozens of locals from Mangawhai and the surrounding area. Guzik noted that these positions won’t go away after the April event. They will only grow in number once the club opens, providing summer jobs for teenagers and teaching new skills that can be used at golf facilities across New Zealand and the world.

“We are most grateful for the opportunity to do something on behalf of this community,” Kayne added. “This is such a great country. I’ve admired it for so long. As an American, it’s been gratifying to put down some roots here and create something we’re very proud of. This event we’re hosting is our first chance to really show off the beauty of this area – and this project we’ve been engaged with for more than four years. I’d especially like to thank the people of Mangawhai who offered up their homes, for our guests. It was a lovely gesture and we’re humbled by it.”

Environmental awareness
The golf course at Tara Iti Golf Club, designed by Tom Doak (the man responsible for Cape Kidnappers GC in Hawkes Bay), will open for member play this spring. The residential portion of the development comes next. With just 46 home sites on some 1,500 acres, however, the overall development plan calls for an extraordinary amount of open space.

“Te Uri o Hau is pleased to see that the environmental, economic and social outcomes expected from the sale of the land at Te Arai has exceeded expectations,” said Deborah Harding, chief executive officer of the Te Uri o Hau Settlement Trust.

“The environmental outcomes have been positive, especially for the shorebirds. Mangawhai and the wider community have enjoyed the economic benefits from the establishment of the Tara Iti Golf Club and the social benefits include the creation of local permanent jobs and the positive outlook for the area. Te Uri o Hau looks forward to formally welcoming the principals of Tara Iti to our rohe.”

PRESERVATION: The picturesque Tara Iti golf course complex is designed to compliment its coastal environment.