2022 - What a year!

We are thrilled with what has been achieved this year thanks to our trustees, LINZ, Te Tapu o Tāne, Shaping our Future, stakeholders, and most importantly, the Cromwell community.

​The year started with us partnering with Shaping our Future to create a community vision report and was the first time ever the community were invited to come together and share what they see for the lake’s future. Over 350 people provided feedback to capture the community's values, concerns and aspirations for such topics as the transition of the Kawarau arm, the development of the shoreline, local biodiversity and recreational activities. This report will help not only our work to improve the lake and protect values, but also to help guide councils, stakeholders, community groups and anyone else wanting to advocate or undertake projects to create the lake the local community wants and deserves.

In May 60 eager Cromwell Primary students helped us plant 240 natives along the shoreline near Bell Ave and it was awesome to see so many of our rangatahi getting stuck in and being a part of the restoration of our shoreline. Thanks to support from Enviroschool, local community groups, residents and businesses. These plants have taken incredibly to the site and are thriving! 

In July, the trust contracted Te Tapu o Tāne (TToT), a community-focused, Iwi-owned entity, to deliver our community engagement and the Bridge to Bridge project to reintroduce native plants and improvement works along a section of the lake. We also unveiled our landscape plan, community vision report and implementation plan to the community and made these available on our website.

Spring saw the largest community planting event in the region and the installation of 10,000 native plants thanks to over 170 incredible volunteers.TToT organised an amazing weekend-long event with interactive stalls, delicious kai and great vibes to create a space for wildlife and people to thrive and explore. Thank you to all the amazing community groups, individuals and businesses that attended and supported this event.

A big thank you to TToT for their amazing mahi prepping, mulching and irrigating the site, supporting community involvement and clearing lupins along McNulty Inlet shoreline. Maintenance will continue over the summer and further planting is planned in autumn. We also want to thank corrections for all their help this spring. We can then move focus onto other locations for much-needed improvements

2022 was a big year for advocation to improve the Kawarau arm. In July the trust submitted an open letter to ORC with support from the community to review conditions associated with the Landscape Visual Amenity Management Plan (LVAMP). As the community is well aware, the dam's impact on the environment is abundantly clear with lake weed, sediment and driftwood reducing access, cleanliness, biodiversity and visual amenity of Bannockburn Inlet and the Kawara arm. The ORC acknowledges that the current consent conditions do not provide a set of performance criteria to evaluate compliance. We are now assisting ORC with their assessment and will be sure to keep the community updated on the review's progress.

It was a pleasure to support Cromwell Primary with the building of an incredible driftwood Moa that now resides in Old Cromwell and coordinated the 12th annual lakeside clean up.  Cromwell Primary students and over 80 community members did an amazing job clearing over 17 trailers of rubbish and weeds along the shoreline. Yet to come is the community tool shed that will provide the tools needed for groups and individuals. We have been working to secure resource consent and hope to unveil it in the new year. 

Lastly, we launched our summer survey this month and would like to invite everyone to head to our website and complete the survey and also share it with friends and family.

Once again, thank you to the Cromwell community, local schools, businesses and community groups for their support and mahi over the past 12 months and also to TToT, CODC, ORC, LINZ, and Contact Energy for all their efforts to improve our region. We look forward to 2023 and everything we have planned with the community and to improve the lake.