100-Year Vision of Belmont Regional Park

Recognizing the ecological potential of post-agricultural landscapes, this research investigates the application of how native birds can be engaged.

20 March 2026

Lydia Wevers Scholarship Seminar

Presenter—Hannah Merrett-Kaufman

Globally, an estimated 385–472 million hectares of abandoned agricultural land exist (Campbell, 2008), predominantly in high- and middle-income countries (Yang, Yi, et al., 2020). Agricultural intensification has significantly altered landscapes, impacting biodiversity, trace-gas emissions, water quality and flow, soil health, and climate (Wade, Gurr, et al., 2008). While abandoned agricultural lands can contribute to carbon sequestration through natural vegetation recovery, this process is often slow or incomplete without active intervention, leaving some landscapes degraded for decades (Yang, Yi, et al., 2020).

Recognising the ecological potential of post-agricultural landscapes, this research investigates the application of how native birds can be engaged as agents of ecological succession to inform a restoration strategy to transform the 3,500-hectare Belmont Regional Park in Aotearoa New Zealand from a peri-urban landscape into a thriving recreational ecosanctuary. This park is undergoing a significant land-use transition as historical agricultural leases are set to expire in January 2026, with Greater Wellington Regional Council refocusing on recreation and restoration with the adoption of a new management plan (GWRC, 2025). Established in 1986, under the name Waitangirua Farm operating as a sheep and beef breeding farm (Preserve Belmont Farm Park, 2022).

This shift presents both challenges and opportunities for ecological restoration and community conservation. This study explores a restoration strategy that positions birds as ecological agents of change and markers of success. By developing micro-design interventions as part of a 100-year vision, this approach combined with strategic community conservation can transform Belmont Regional Park’s post-agricultural land into a recreational ecosanctuary. Creating regeneration, restoration, revitalisation, and resilience.

Motivation: This thesis began with observations and a walk. I stood on a ridge in Belmont Regional Park and watched birds trace paths across the wind. What started as a curiosity about land and movement became a deep exploration of time, memory, and intergenerational care. This work reflects the weaving of many voices, ancestral, ecological, and personal. It’s a story shaped by fauna and flora, and the patience of flight. The desert of green grass and rye, replacing the forest, wetlands and shrublands of what once teemed of life. This walk through the existing park reminds you of that past, of what was. But also, give rise to what could be. On a precipice of change, Belmont Park could take flight into something spectacular.

Hannah was the recipient of the 2025 Lydia Wevers Scholarship.