One of the sites at Travis Wetland where we set up our invertebrate sampling yesterday was in the new southern woods.

I helped with a planting day for this back in 2014, when it was still a wet field. Now, it feels like a real forest, with a canopy well above my head and lots of wild seedlings scattered about underneath. It's amazing how quickly trees grow when the ground is always wet.

Here are two photos of the same part of the wetland in September 2014, when trees were being planted, and now. It's like magic!

Many of the trees planted here were sourced from Pūtaringamotu, Riccarton Bush, the old growth fragment of kahikatea swamp forest in central Christchurch. Pūtaringamotu is a much drier site than it was when the city was founded so it's fantastic to see a new swamp forest emerging.

(Now we just need to rein in our carbon emissions to stop the impending sea level rise that will otherwise submerge all these sites in a few centuries.)

#UrbanEcology #ForestRestoration #wetland #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #nature