17 Rugby Legends including Sir Colin Meads, John Sturgeon and Bryan Williams have joined over 6,500 New Zealanders to plant more than 120,000 native trees as part of the Living Legends project so far.

Living Legends is a community conservation project that was established in 2011 to celebrate and leave a legacy of New Zealand’s hosting of Rugby World Cup.  It is a five year project that will eventually see 170,000 native trees planted throughout New Zealand. A staggering 129,140 native trees have been planted so far.

2012 is the second year of planting for Living Legends and 17 public planting events were held around New Zealand in August and September, each dedicated to a Rugby Legend from the region. Buller-West Coast Rugby Legend, John Sturgeon says “It has been a privilege for me to be part of such a worthy community involvement and I was delighted with the turnout of volunteers from the West Coast and Buller areas who gave their time to Living Legends for the local planting days in 2011 and 2012. It was also pleasing to see so many young school children participating and learning about the part they play in conservation.”

Project Manager for Living Legends, Devon McLean says “We’re thrilled with the support from our Rugby Legends who have been actively involved in Living Legends planting days with the local community. Reaching the 120,000 trees mark is a huge milestone. We’re very proud of our commitment to helping to restore New Zealand’s bio-diversity with our Rugby Legends.”

Living Legends planting events will return next year, with dates and locations to be announced in early 2013.

Thousands of New Zealanders have now helped to plant over 100,000 native trees as part of the Living Legends project.

Living Legends is a community conservation project that was established in 2011 to celebrate and leave a legacy of New Zealand’s hosting of Rugby World Cup.  It is a five year project that will eventually see 170,000 native trees planted through public planting events held every year. A staggering 110,350 native trees have been planted so far, with a further 18,000 to be planted this year.

There are 17 planting projects around New Zealand and each is dedicated to a Rugby Legend from the region.  These include rugby greats such as Sir Colin Meads, Buck Shelford and Todd Blackadder.

“Reaching the 100,000 trees mark is a huge milestone. We’re very proud of our commitment to helping to restore New Zealand’s bio-diversity with our Rugby Legends.  Living Legends was established as an opportunity for people to get involved in the restoration of native tree populations alongside Rugby Legends in their local community” says Devon McLean, Project Manager for Living Legends.  “We look forward to seeing the next 18,000 trees being planted over the next two weeks”.

Volunteers muck in at the 2012 Living Legends event in Taupo

There is still opportunity for people to get involved with a local planting project this year, with events to be held this weekend in Wellington, Punakaiki, Tauranga and next weekend in Otago, Southland, Manawatu and Waikato.

Living Legends is a joint venture of Project Crimson, an environmental charity with 22 years experience in community-based native restoration projects and The Tindall Foundation.  Major sponsors are the Department of Conservation and Meridian Energy.

Living Legends Operations Manager, Gordon Hosking, has been busy travelling around our sites to check on the health of the trees we planted last year. There is no doubt the 2011 season has been an outstanding success. The majority of sites show over 95% survival of plants and very good growth, largely due to the silver lining of our dismal summer, the trees loved it!

Good quality plants from our nurseries and careful planting by our volunteers have ensured we made the best of the wet summer. The only site to show significant losses was Orokonui (Dunedin) where very hot weather immediately after the planting day caused some losses, but even here 80% of what we planted is happily growing.

Competition from weeds and grass can severely limit tree survival and growth in the first year after planting and on sites where acacia and blackberry is present some spraying has been necessary. Most sites have long grass and to the untrained eye they can look a bit neglected, however, as long as the plants are upright and clear above, the weeds and grass provide some shelter and on a number of sites discourage rabbits which can be very damaging. In a year’s time the plants will be above the competition and visitors will be able to clearly see the success of planting.

All in all, we’re rapt with the progress so far!