Keep Waitakere Beautiful
Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust (KWBT) is a volunteer driven community based organisation that aims to create a beautiful city attractive to residents, visitors and businesses.
KWBT actively seeks to involve residents in the beautification of their community with participation in projects like ‘Trees for Babies’, ‘Adopt a Spot’, ‘Operation Spring Clean’ and ‘Neat Street’.
KWBT has enjoyed enviable success since its inception and in the past tens of thousands of residents have volunteered their time to assist KWBT to make Our City a more attractive place to live, work, play and visit. The programme enjoys an excellent profile in the community and is both well liked and supported.
PROJECTS:
Clean Stream was established by Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust in 1996 in partnership with Auckland Council to promote community involvement in the restoration and enhancement of streams in west Auckland. The programme continues to provide a wide range of people with the skills, knowledge, and resources to be involved in stream restoration.
Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust encourages Clean Stream volunteers to adopt an area of a stream, creating a greater sense of ownership. Volunteers are taught the importance of stream health and are actively involved in the removal of litter, inorganic rubbish and noxious weeds, replanting banks with natives, and ongoing maintenance.
Community Projects in partnership with Auckland Council, Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust provides funding toward community projects within west Auckland that promote litter and waste reduction, tree planting, re-vegetation, and similar initiatives. Applications for grant funding may be made at any time. Grant funding is typically awarded for requests up to $300 in value, and success of your application will depend on the volume of applications received.
EcoWise Community Awards the awards celebrate and honour residents of west Auckland who show a commitment to beautifying their suburb, and care for their environment through volunteer action and pride.
Any resident of west Auckland may enter the EcoWise Community Awards on their own behalf, or by nominating another party. Nominations are welcome at any time, and the awards event is usually held in November.
For winners and photos of the EcoWise Community Awards 2011 please CLICK here.
Operation Spring Clean is an annual event that aims to increase awareness about waste in the environment. It encourages schools, service organisations, sports clubs, churches and community groups, businesses and individuals to take an active role in cleaning up the environment.
Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust provides rubbish bags, gloves, jumbo bins, and disposal to anyone registering a clean up on public land. Operation Spring Clean will be held from September to October.
Download an Operation Spring Clean Registration
Trees for Babies in May each year, family and friends are invited by Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust to celebrate the birth of their new baby by planting a native tree in a local reserve.
The project is delivered in partnership with Auckland Council and Plunket and a personalised invitation is sent to all babies registered with Plunket in the year prior to the planting event. Four neighbourhood parks, one in each of the four city wards, are selected for a grove of 'baby trees'.
At each event, families are given a planting demonstration and educated about the importance of trees in the urban environment. Free entertainment is provided including clowns, a bouncy castle, and face painters. Every baby attending is presented with a 'new citizen' certificate.
Parks are selected with the guidance of the council arborist and in consultation with the four community boards. Parks are chosen to enhance a public area, and to encourage families to visit and utilise their local park more often.
For viewing the Photos for Trees For Babies 2011 please see below.
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Woodside Reserve Photos - CLICK here
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Prospect Park Photos - CLICK here
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Paremuka Lakeside Photos - CLICK here
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Tony Segedin Reserve Photos - CLICK here
To order the photos please CLICK here.
War on Weeds encourages local residents to remove invasive weeds from their property, to reduce the amount of illegal dumping of weeds and to increase general awareness of invasive plant pests and their threat to native bush.
These pest plants are a major threat to Waitakere's native bush:
Ginger Plant - Blue Morning Glory - Japanese Honeysuckle - Climbing Asparagus - Jasmine - Moth Plant - Plectranthus - Smilax - Tradescantia (Wandering Jew)
Help rid west Auckland of these fast spreading invaders!
If you are having difficulty identifying any of these invasive weeds, please visit the Weedbusters website.
Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust can supply west Auckland households with 10 biodegradable bags per year, for them to fill with environmental weeds from their properties. This service is provided free of charge and includes collection of the bags from your property once they are full.
This project is run with the support of Auckland Council and WeedFree Trust. WeedFree offers advice on weed removal methods and suggestions on native plants for replanting. All weeds are deposited at the Auckland Council Transfer Station.
For information phone (09) 826 4276 or email info@kwbt.org.nz