Making Auckland green again

They’re called pollinator pathways — and amid the concrete jungle of urban Auckland they might get mistaken for an ugly, overgrown patch of scrub.

But a young landscape architect wants to see more of these refuges for nature around the isthmus, at a time many of our green spaces are being swallowed up by increasing development.

To keep our ecosystems healthy, pollinating species such as bees, birds, butterflies and lizards need planted corridors that allow them to move about the city.

Our best-known example is the joint North-West Wildlink project, which links habitats and communities from the Waitakere Ranges in the west to the Hauraki Gulf Islands in the east.

Andrea Reid is trying to create her own network, starting with Grey Lynn’s Hakanoa Reserve, which locals helped her make a more suitable habitat for species.

Her Pollinator Paths effort ultimately aims to build a natural bridge from Grey Lynn Park to the Cox’s Bay Reserve.

It won’t be easy — residents would have to be encouraged to grow out their berms, and managers of infrastructure and transport corridors would also need to be persuaded to allow their sites to be planted.

“Generally it comes down to what we can push for, what we can get grants for, and what we have enough time to design.”

But Reid was heartened to see some effort by agencies such as the NZ Transport Agency, which recently published new landscape and visual assessment guidelines.

She praised Paris for greening its buildings and facades — but hoped Auckland would never get to the point where that became a necessity here.

“[Paris has] decided they need those areas because they are so deficient, but here we’ve got so much space that we can fit an actual park or change our streetscapes.

“But we need to be really careful we don’t lose the places we have and forget that we’re so lucky.”