Town Belt Traverse 2017

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

1865 Dunedin —Heritage Festival 2015 Shoreline Trail launch

1865 DUNEDIN | Dunedin Heritage Festival 2015
Friday 28 August – Sunday 30 August
Celebrating 150 years of building our great small city

█ Events Programme at http://www.heritagefestival.org.nz/

█ Dunedin Shoreline Trail
The Dunedin 1865 Shoreline Trail will be launched by Dr Matt Schmidt (Heritage New Zealand) and Paul Pope (Dunedin Amenities Society) next Sunday, August 30, at 11.30am. The free hour-long walk will depart from the early settlers’ plaque at the top of Water St and proceed along the early shoreline to St Andrew St, with descriptions of interesting archaeological and built heritage features along the way.

[click to enlarge]

The Dunedin Shoreline Trail brings together years of research into the city’s history, above and below ground.

### ODT Online Sun, 23 Aug 2015
Dunedin’s early shorelines explored
By Brenda Harwood
The extraordinary feat of pick-and-shovel engineering that altered Dunedin’s shoreline by up to 700 metres in the 1860s is highlighted in a new walking trail. The Dunedin Shoreline Trail, which marks the city’s harbour boundary in 1865, will be launched next week during the Dunedin Heritage Festival, which celebrates 150 years since Dunedin became a city.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse 2015 —SUNDAY

● More walk/traverse details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
18.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
13.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Posters supplied by Dunedin Amenities Society

Town Belt Traverse 2015

● More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
13.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Posters supplied by Dunedin Amenities Society

Town Belt Traverse 2015

● More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse 2015

█ More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March

█ More details at the DAS website

Related Post:
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

███ What if? Dunedin supports SENSIBLE WALKING SHOES

Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

Link received from Paul Pope, Dunedin Amenities Society
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 at 2:53 p.m.

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Town Belt Traverse 2015

Walkers in the sun

It’s time to get your walking shoes on again and explore one of Dunedin’s great natural and historical landscapes.

The Town Belt Traverse is an 8.2 kilometre walk from the Southern Cemetery to Woodhaugh Gardens taking in the heart of the Dunedin Town Belt on Sunday, 29 March. The great thing about it is it’s absolutely free!

The route is a pram friendly event for people of all ages, stopping off at five points along the way. The Participants will receive a map and ticket at the car-park inside the Southern Cemetery.

The traverse starts between 10:00am – 10.30am and all participants must complete the traverse by 1:30pm. Collect a stamp at all five marshal points and you can be eligible for some great local prizes. The route is marked and there will be marshals at road crossing points along the way.

█ More information at the DAS website.

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Today the Town Belt is an important recreational and ecological asset for the city and provides invaluable habitat for kereru, bellbird, tomtit, tui, rifleman, morepork, and shining cuckoo. The vegetation is an eclectic mix of exotics that dominates the southern area of the ‘belt to the more kanuka and fuchsia dominated ridges and gullies of the northern areas. At Woodhaugh an old stand of kahikatea remains as a reminder of a significant wetland forest that once stood there.

For the Dunedin Amenities Society the protection and enhancement of the Town Belt was the beginning of its foundation in 1888. The Society was founded through the energy of Thomas Brown and Alexander Bathgate to protect, enhance and promote Dunedin’s landscape and biodiversity. The Town Belt Traverse is your opportunity to explore through a self-guided walk one of New Zealand’s great reserve sites.

The Dunedin Amenities Society established in 1888 is New Zealand’s oldest environmental society.

Visit their website http://www.dunedin-amenities-society.org.nz
Follow the Society on Twitter
Visit the Society on Facebook

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Dunedin Amenities Society – Town Belt Traverse

Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 3 Nov

Originally published on October 14, 2013.

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This year is the 125th anniversary of the foundation of
the Dunedin Amenities Society.

The Town Belt plays a special role in our history and is one of New Zealand’s oldest and most unique landscape, recreational and biodiversity assets.

The Society is holding the Town Belt Traverse on Sunday 3 November as a self-guided 7.9 km walk that takes in just a few of the historical and natural highlights of this unique area.

This is a family friendly non-competitive event designed for people to re-acquaint themselves with the Town Belt and enjoy its beauty.

The generosity of many local businesses means the Society has some great prizes to give away for those who take part and complete the walk.

So get your walking shoes, grab your dog lead or your pram and do the Town Belt Traverse with your friends and family.

Check this link for the details…..

Paul Pope
DAS website editor

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The Dunedin Amenities Society established in 1888 is New Zealand’s oldest environmental society.

Visit our website www.dunedin-amenities-society.org.nz
Follow the Society on Twitter
Visit the Society on Facebook

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Amenities Society on district plan review

Received by email today.

The Dunedin Amenities Society have held strong concerns over aspects of the District Plan for some time, particularly over the way the Plan is integrated with management of public open space and reserves. Sites like the Town Belt are actually being hampered in their management by the imposition of the Urban Landscape Conservation Area rules, which fails to have regard for its status under the Reserves act 1977. The Minister of Conservation approved a management plan for the Town Belt in 2007, but what is the point if the District Plan overrides its principles.

The Society urges all members and people of Dunedin to consider how the reserve conservation areas that we have in Dunedin should be managed and how the District Plan should complement their management rather than impede it.

● The Dunedin Amenities Society established in 1888 is New Zealand’s oldest environmental society.

Visit their website at www.dunedin-amenities-society.org.nz
Follow the Society on Twitter
Visit the Society on Facebook

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Here is the latest update from the Society’s website:

A Conservation Conundrum
By daseditor

The Dunedin City Council is presently undertaking a review of the District Plan and that review will mean that the Dunedin Amenities Society will also be looking at the implications of those changes. The review includes looking at creating a new open space, reserves and recreation zone which would “reflect the different types of open space and recreation areas”. The current District Plan does not recognise reserve, conservation or recreation areas as distinct entities, but rather classifies them within the zone of the surrounding land. The problem with that approach is that the activities and land use that is associated with reserve, conservation or recreation sites is often quite distinct to the surrounding land use zones. Reserve sites such as the Town Belt are often over-arched with a wider zone classification such as the “Urban Landscape Conservation Area”. Thus the rules of the District Plan override the legal protection status of the reserve under the Reserves Act 1977 without fully understanding the nature of the reserve or its values. This creates inherent problems for reserves like the Town Belt when dealing with very real conservation management issues.
In one example the current District Plan actually hampers the ability of the Council to manage areas of high conservation significance. The rules (13.8.2) associated with the management of bush within Urban Landscape Conservation Areas have inadvertently protected the highly invasive Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus). Vegetation removal in these zones is a discretionary activity, which is infinitely sensible as it protects flora and fauna on private land. However, under the District Plan the rule “does not apply where the plants to be removed are listed in any Regional Pest Plant Management Strategy applying to the district of Dunedin City”. Here lies the conservation conundrum because sycamore is not included in the Otago Regional Council’s Pest Plant Management Strategy (that’s a whole other post at a later time). Which means that under the current Urban Landscape Conservation Area rules sycamore becomes classified as “bush” and the removal of individual mature seed bearing sycamore cannot be undertaken without resource consent.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Amenities Society: Craigieburn Reserve at Tanner Road

[event information from 2013]

The Dunedin Amenities Society will be holding an open day at the Craigieburn Reserve on Saturday 10 December, starting at 10:00 am.

The open day will be the official opening of the reserve by the Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull and the launch of the heritage interpretation trail developed on site for the Dunedin public.

Gain your first glimpse of the Society’s year-long restoration that has developed an area of regional significance for Dunedin. There will be time to explore the reserve and gain insight into part of Dunedin’s unique settler heritage.

Come and enjoy this important event with the Society and embrace your pioneer spirit at Craigieburn. Billy tea and damper provided.

More Craigieburn information here.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Bathgate was right in 1888 about city apathy

He berrated the city often on the nature of apathy and was very hot on “larrikins and butcher’s boys”

The Conservation of Heritage and Landscape in Dunedin
Posted by: daseditor | January 27, 2011
On the 11th of September 1888 Dunedin lawyer Alexander Bathgate read an address to the Otago Institute entitled “The development and conservation of the amenities of Dunedin and its neighbourhood”. The address was the catalyst for the foundation of the Dunedin and Suburban Reserves Conservation Society, the forerunner of the Dunedin Amenities Society. Bathgate outlined a vision for Dunedin that was so detailed in its construction that he apologised to his audience for “frightening you by the extent and magnitude of my programme”. What Bathgate outlined was both the protection of the existing natural landscape and the enhancement of the urban built environment in the developing city. It was a vision that blended the conservation of native biodiversity and landscape with the call home syndrome of “practical and prosaic colonists”.
From the blog of The Dunedin Amenities Society (read more)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr (via @damensoc)

Dunedin Amenities Society: UGLY Dunedin

“Dunedin is a beautiful city but we also have our share of ugly areas that blight our landscape and decrease the value of our city for visitors and the community. The Society would like Dunedin people to cast a critical eye over their city and the communities they live in and consider what is good and bad in their landscape and environment. What makes you sit up and take notice?”

Check out the Dunedin Amenities Society website . . . have your camera ready!

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Post by Elizabeth Kerr