Friends of Cooney
Friends of Cooney is a voluntary group involved with the restoration of Cooney Reserve on the Ōmokoroa peninsula. Formed at the beginning of 2022, it was confronted with an enormous task of removing large amounts of noxious plants such as gorse, blackberry, paspalum, and moth plant from the reserve.
During the subsequent months, individual subgroups began to form, each focussing on challenging tasks such as clearing fence lines, weed spraying, mangrove control, and planting. Western Bay of Plenty District Council has become very involved in supplying sprays, truckloads of plants such as Oioi grasses and small flax, and sub-contractors to do the heavy stuff.
Small Circle are one of those sub-contractors who have been of great assistance with the planting of huge quantities of plants. Potentially creating a lovely avenue, twelve pohutukawa trees have just been installed along the cycle path.
Friends of Cooney are one of the many voluntary groups working under the auspices of OEMI (Ōmokoroa Environmental Managers Inc). These groups often bond together in joint projects. The Ōmokoroa Public Arts Group (OPAG) under Alie Henderson recently installed a wonderful kinetic sculpture down in Cooney Reserve featuring Ngā Kuaka (The Godwits), created by Dave Roy of Whakamārama. WBoPDC has just installed two picnic tables adjacent to the car park, and in the near future, families will be delighted to learn that a small toilet block will be installed.
Friends of Cooney are thrilled that the Bird Group of OEMI, under Chrissie
Cleaver, has decided to organise a special festival to welcome the Godwits back to Ōmokoroa after their extraordinary journey south from the Arctic. This family-orientated
event will occur on Saturday 29th October. It is hoped that it will become an annual fixture on Ōmokoroa’s increasingly busy calendar of events.