Taranaki Regional Council media release

4 February 2009

For immediate release

How To Measure Pulse Of Big City River

Insects, crustaceans, worms and snails will be on the menu for a public workshop at Tupare, on the banks of the Waiwhakaiho River in New Plymouth, on Sunday, 15 February.

Not for the eating, though.  There’ll be barbecued bangers to ease any inner pangs as workshop participants learn how the Waiwhakaiho’s tiniest inhabitants can reveal much about the river’s health.

The free, hands-on workshop will be led by Taranaki Regional Council education and scientific staff who will explain and demonstrate well-established techniques for assessing a waterway’s quality by studying the type and number of invertebrates living in it.

“The Waiwhakaiho is one of the largest rivers to flow off Mount Taranaki and it flows through the region’s biggest urban area, so this is a good chance for people to get to know it better,” says the Council’s Regional Gardens Manager, Greg Rine.

“Health and well-being is a hot topic for many people these days; this is an opportunity to extend that interest into the health and well-being of the environment we live in.”

Participants will need suitable footwear for the river ecology workshop, which will run from 5pm to 8pm on the Tupare river flat.

Tupare is a premier heritage property that features a house designed by James Chapman-Taylor and stunningly landscaped grounds developed by Sir Russell Matthews.

The river ecology workshop is part of a year-long schedule of public events at Tupare and at Hollard Gardens, Kaponga, another heritage property owned and managed by the Taranaki Regional Council on behalf of the people of the region.

ENDS

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