Craigieburn Basin Restoration Trust December 2025 Newsletter
Welcome to our last newsletter for 2025. This time last year the community was reeling from the Bridge Hill Fire and figuring out how to make sense of what had happened. A year later the Trust is in place, we have long term plans, and we are running Feel the Burn trail run in January. The Trust is very much in its infancy, but momentum is growing and we’re excited about how things are shaping up.
Funding
Raising funds is critical to turning the Trust’s ambitious plans into action on the ground. We’re delighted to have been successful with grant applications to the Selwyn District Council’s Selwyn Natural Environment Fund. The funding means we can contract an ecologist to prepare a 50 Year Ecological Vision for the Trust and complete the baseline monitoring work for the burnt area. Both these tasks are foundational for the future direction of our work. We’re also waiting to hear from Transpower on an application for weed management. Early in the New Year we expect to be lodging a number of funding applications. These are likely to include pest control, further development of a nursery to support restoration planting, experimental ways of seeding native regeneration, ongoing monitoring & data capture and operational costs. We will keep you posted.
Sharing our story and building relationships
On 10 December we had the opportunity to make a presentation to the newly formed Selwyn District Council. Thank you to the Castle Hill Community Association for inviting us to join with them to present to the Mayor and Councillors. Our presentation was well received. We’re looking forward to growing and maturing our partnership with the Council. We’re also actively building relationships with ECAN, the Waimakariri Biodiversity Trust and a number of other groups. The establishment of the Trust is grounded in the idea that as a community we’re more impactful when we work together. Collectively we share many of the same goals and there’s lots that we can learn from each other.
We know that being clear on how we work with other organisations is really important. The Trust, member groups and the community have ambitious, mutually reinforcing goals. To have a chance of meeting our goals we need to be strategic and actively work together. A small group of us are meeting before Christmas to ‘Figure out how we work together’. The outputs from this meeting will be brought back to the Trust Working Group for review and discussion. Likewise the other member groups will want to review and discuss.
Weed management
Building on DOC's weed control survey of the Frost Flat area, we carried out a further weed survey and preliminary assessment of the remaining basin in late October. A weed management plan has now been drafted, prioritizing areas for control using a range of methods including volunteer hand-pulling of broom seedlings.
DOC is continuing weed control work over the Frost Flat section, while our broader weed control efforts are dependent on securing funding through the Transpower grant.
We had fantastic support in early December from Protect Our Winters http://protectourwinters.nz/ , who reached out offering to help with a working bee while their group was staying at the Environmental Centre. Anna Hill met with them, and they spent half a day pulling broom seedlings along the Coal Spit Spur track—a big thank you to them for getting stuck in.
Further volunteer workdays will be organized in the new year, so watch this space if you'd like to be involved
Baseline data
Selwyn District Council has started the baseline data collection and analysis. The GIS team came up on the 4th with the drone and have covered the frost flats further drone work is planned as soon as weather and conditions allow.
We're waiting with anticipation for the data to come through—Getting the baseline data will give us a comprehensive picture of where we're starting from and will be available to all parties as a crucial tool for monitoring progress, tracking vegetation growth, and measuring the impact of our work overtime.
Feel the Burn Update:
Things have been moving fast with event day on the 24th of January now only 6 weeks away. We have all our compliance documents and requirements in line and submitted, with no anticipated issues.
Support for the event has been amazing. Traffic management, marketing, marquees, BBQs, radios, volunteer hats and t-shirts are all being provided, plus an incredible array of prizes valued at over $10,000 donated from local businesses, along with $15,000 in cash sponsorship.
We have a great list of volunteers signed up, entries are over 100 and increasing daily, so everything is lining up to make this a fantastic day. If you haven't registered yet, get in soon—this is shaping up to be something special!
2026 Planning
We're planning a kick-off day at the Castle Hill Community Hall in early February to get the year started right. 2025 was huge for the Trust—we laid the groundwork, got our structure sorted, developed our goals, and worked on the foundation we needed. That work was essential and will continue to grow as we expand, but now we're also ready for the exciting part: getting our hands dirty and making things happen on the ground.
In 2026 we'll be ramping up the physical work — planting, weed control, pest monitoring, regeneration trials, and seeing real progress in the basin. We want everyone involved, whether you can commit to regular workdays or just want to pitch in occasionally.
Invitations will be out soon with more details. Everyone's welcome—bring your energy and your ideas. This is where the momentum builds, and we need all hands-on deck to make it happen.
Thanks for your support over the year. We’re excited about 2026 and looking forward to seeing you as we work together to restore the Craigieburn Basin. Wishing everyone a happy and relaxed time over Christmas and New Year.