By Lesley Judd, Partnerships Ranger.

The Great Walks season is now underway in Whanganui and our staff are putting the final touches to a massive three months of clean up work.

Flying diggers and culverts in to Whanganui National Park

Record floods in late June caused the immediate closure of all tracks, huts and campsites in the Whanganui district until inspections could be carried out to assess the damage and any potential risk to visitors.

Damaged steps at Tieke canoe landing

Campsites on the iconic Whanganui Journey received a liberal coating of silt, signs were washed away and toilets damaged. Worst hit was John Coull Hut where a huge slip destroyed the boardwalk between the hut and campsite, closing the site.

The Bridge to Nowhere Track and Mangapurua leg of the Mountains to Sea cycle trail weren’t pretty – slips and washouts along the length of these tracks created 37 kilometres of muddy mess to clear.

Flooded toilets at Tieke campsite

Windfalls had made walking hard work on the Matemateāonga Track on the western side of the Whanganui National Park, and slips closed the Trains Track and Ātene Skyline Track.

This amount of work would normally take many months to complete, but with less than 12 weeks until the start of the busy Great Walks season, the pressure was on to get our facilities open for visitors to enjoy, and to allow local tourism businesses to get back to providing their fantastic services.

Engineer Kate checking out the damage

Armed with photos, notebooks detailing the damage, and an impressive spreadsheet, a grand plan was hatched deep inside the Whanganui Office at the desk of senior recreation ranger Jim Campbell.

Jim wrangled engineers and planners, persuaded accountants, organised diggers, helicopters and dynamite, and enlisted a small army of hardy folk to get cracking on the repairs.

Assessing track damage

Abseiling and blasting specialists were brought in to clear some particularly gnarly slips on the Mangapurua Track, the rest were cleared by diggers, shovels, muscle and sweat.

We focussed on repairing John Coull Hut and the Bridge to Nowhere Track before the Whanganui Journey opened for summer. A hardworking contractor crew from Pipiriki got stuck into clearing the lower end of the Mangapurua Track, and a digger operator dealt to the many slips and washouts on the upper section of the track.

Pipiriki slip clearing crew

Our neighbours from the Manawatu Office also pitched in and sent three staff to work with our Whanganui chainsaw crew clearing windfalls on the Matemateāonga Track.

Repairing the Bridge to Nowhere Track

Our field teams have worked tirelessly at John Coull Hut, the Bridge to Nowhere Track and the Mangapurua Track. They spent long hours and most of winter camped out onsite clearing slips, digging drains and repairing signs and toilets.

The transformations are Extreme Makeover worthy and a real credit to the skills and hard work of the clean up teams.

Unloading the digger on the Mangapurua Track

We are happy to report the Whanganui Journey is open for the Great Walks season, and we aim to have the Mangapurua Cycle Trail fully open within the next couple of weeks.

After three months of hard yakka we look forward to the sights and sounds of groups of paddlers, cyclists and trampers experiencing the Whanganui National Park this summer.

Keep an eye on the Whanganui pages on the DOC website for the status of our tracks.

Today’s photo of the week is of a shining cuckoo/pīpīwharauroa that has returned to New Zealand for the summer.

Shining cuckoos from New Zealand usually spend their winters in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. They return to New Zealand over summer to breed.

These birds are brood parasites and lay their eggs in nests of grey warbler/riroriro, after which the adult cuckoo takes no further part in raising their young. Once they hatch the young cuckoos are dependent on their warbler foster parents.

This shining cuckoo can be found throughout most of New Zealand, reflecting the wide distribution of the grey warbler.

Photo: Jack Mace

By Lou Sanson, DOC Director-General

Success for DOC and Air New Zealand at the Tourism Awards

On 2 October I joined members of our Marketing team at the Tourism Industry Awards, where our partnership with Air New Zealand on the Great Walks won the Industry Alignment award.

Lou with Lisa Barrett, General Manager of Tourism, Sectors, Regions and Cities at MBIE and Meghan Blair, Air New Zealand Sponsorship and Communities Manager

This is a huge credit to all our staff who put so much into the Air New Zealand partnership. It also reinforces why Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon recently announced his decision to extend the DOC/Air New Zealand partnership until 2020.

Our Air NZ partnership is now worth around $10 million to conservation but, more importantly, it puts DOC in front of around 13 million Air New Zealand passengers each year, giving us the opportunity to share Our Nature and the DOC story. It is essentially about supercharging both organisations’ success and achieving some great conservation outcomes as well.

Ngāti Porou Treaty Partnership

On 6 October I met with the new Ngati Porou CEO Herewini Muturangi Te Koha to discuss a number of our Treaty Partner projects in Tai Rawhiti.

Lou with Ngati Porou CEO Herewini Muturangi Te Koha, Tui Warmenhoven, Director Conservation Portfolio; Lou, De-Arne Sutherland, Conservation Partnerships Manager based in Gisborne

Our Gisborne and Te Araroa staff have been extensively involved in supporting Ngati Porou in their vision ‘Mountains to Sea’ with native fish and Hochstetters frog monitoring and habitat restoration. We also discussed the remarkable programme on the restoration of Whangaokeno Island off East Cape (44 tuatara given by Ngati Koata in 2013 and the grey faced petrel programme). We also discussed how we can help the Ngati Porou Miere collective generate local business from manuka honey through Nga Whanua Rahui funding and covenants.

New partnership with the Sustainable Business Council

Also on 6 October, I represented the Department at the signing of a new three-year partnership agreement with the Sustainable Business Council.

Lou at the signing with Sustainable Business Council Executive Director Penny Nelson

Many businesses aren’t aware of their dependency on natural resources and healthy ecosystems.

The three year agreement will see DOC working with 50 key businesses to promote ecosystems services and biodiversity best practice, and explore market incentives for mitigating and rewarding good ecosystem stewardship.

Department of Corrections MOU

On 29 September Corrections CEO Ray Smith and myself signed a four year National Framework Agreement to work together on conservation projects around New Zealand.

Each year the Department of Corrections contributes the equivalent of 2,500 FTE to community work around New Zealand. This agreement enables a substantial amount of this resource to be directed to initiatives that support our 2025 stretch goals. The agreement is heavily focused on health and safety and providing a learning environment for offenders that ultimately supports their employment in a post-Corrections environment.

This will involve work on

• 14,500 km of track
• 150,000 hectares of weed control
• Prison-based nursery pilots

Some great examples of us working together are already in place, such as the Karangahape Gorge mountain bike track, Te Henga Walkway, the Turangi Whio breeding facility and Manawatu Gorge Track.

Kaipo Hut upgrade

I was over the moon to see the work done by Te Anau staff and volunteers with the historic Kaipo Hut, built in the 1960s and located in one of the most wonderful places in New Zealand, accessible from the 1,300 metre Kaipo Wall in Fiordland.

The exterior of the newly refurbished Kaipo Hut, Fiordland

I was in this hut in 2001 with John Cumberpatch when we heard about 9/11 and what had happened to the twin towers, so it’s a setting I’ll never forget.

Senior Ranger Ken Bradley has been working with Barrie Green of the Mackenzie Alpine Trust as project manager on the refurbishment. They’ve secured sponsorship from Mitre10, Jennian Homes, Milford Helicopters, Calder Stewart, Shearmac Aluminium, Carters, Brent Patterson Building, Grant McGlade Builders and the Cessna 180/185 Club to bring this project to fruition.

Barrie Green, builders Brent Patterson and Nick Hislop, Shane Peak, Chris Watson from Jennian Homes and Gerald Scott. Photo supplied by Barrie Green

Tiritiri Matangi catches up with old friends

In early October, I visited Tiritiri Matangi and met the last lighthouse keepers to live on the island, as well as John Craig, who had the original vision to reforest Tiri 30 years ago.

DOC Ranger Jason Campbell talks visitors through quarantine procedures

At that time, they had 300 visitors per year – now they get 35,000 (limited to 170 per day) and it’s Auckland’s number one visitor attraction on TripAdvisor.

Today Tiritiri Matangi is a $4 million business focused on nature, with 50% of their visitors coming from overseas.

Barbara and Ray Walters, who were the last lighthouse keepers on Tiritiri Matagi, with Nan Ray, the island’s first volunteer

Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi has 2,500 members of which 200 are tour guides. Their income is now over $300,000 a year which they put directly into the island.  Conservation efforts are heavily focused on species translocations, with over 400 hihi translocations now completed.

Predator-free Crofton Downs

Kelvin Hastie

Finally, here’s a story of a neighbourhood doing their bit to stop pests threatening our native birds.

When Crofton Downs resident Kelvin Hastie spotted a mustelid (possibly a weasel) in his neighbourhood, he decided to do something about it.

He rallied members of his community to apply for a Halo grant for urban pest eradication. The campaign worked and the community won a $5000 grant in 2014.

200 households are now actively trapping, and Kelvin updates them regularly on their progress towards predator-free. By June this year they had trapped 85 rats, 120 mice, and eight weasels.

Neighbourhood kid Theo Dawson with one of the unlucky pests

His story formed part of a New Yorker article last year which profiled our country’s efforts to eradicate pests from the mainland, and the community has continued trapping beyond the end of their initial one year project.

Come behind the scenes and into the jobs, the challenges, the highlights, and the personalities of the people who work at the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Today we profile Rogan Colbourne, Technical Advisor.

At work

Some things I do in my job include:

I’m a member of a group of dedicated conservationists from different fields making up the Kiwi Recovery Group. There are about 92 community groups actively involved in kiwi restoration, and I provide advice and assistance to them.

While it might seem that a lot of time and money is spent on kiwi, when a community protects kiwi they’re also protecting other native fauna.

The start of my kiwi career in 1980 – I’m still able to run after and catch kiwi in spite of calls to begin succession planning

I also run two kiwi conservation dogs, Abbie (a yellow labrador) and Jade (an Irish setter) who’s one of the country’s only night-certified kiwi dogs. While dogs are bad news to kiwi in some parts of the country, trained dogs have helped us find out where kiwi are, what they do and how to manage them.

The Kiwi Recovery Group in 2014

This helps the DOC’s vision by:

Ensuring that we will have healthy populations of kiwi for many generations to come, and the rest of the world will look on our conservation efforts with envy.

The best bit about my job is:

Improving the survival prospects of kiwi (and other fauna) by dreaming up innovative methods to bypass the predation problem that besieges kiwi.

One example is Operation Nest Egg, where chicks are physically removed from stoats until they reach 1200 grams (when they can fight back) and they are returned to their natal area.

This has been quite a success but I am now working on three other lesser known programmes:

• Changing the behaviour of kiwi to fight back on their own. Training camps select extra aggressive kiwi to act as sentries so if dogs, stoats or humans approach they will drive away the intruder. Fiordland tokoeka are the preferred species as they are the sumos of the kiwi world.

• Tortoises carry their defences on their backs. Observing the same principle, we’ve provided armour to kiwi in Northland where dog attacks have reduced the average adult kiwi life expectancy from 40-50 years to only 13 years. It’s working well. The next prototype was to have metal nails protruding outwards (hedgehog model) but as kiwi mating (hence productivity) could suffer, we’ve pulled the plug.

• Finally, (and this is a little hush hush because genetic engineering was involved), we selected the biggest kiwi we could find so when their chicks hatched they were large enough to ward off stoats and ferrets. Unfortunately, a few Auckland people disappeared in the vicinity of the trials so we discreetly pulled the funding.

The scariest/awesome-est DOC moment I’ve had so far is:

Ian Flux and I were catching kiwi on the banks of Lock Marie in Dusky Sound around midnight when we decided to take a shortcut, wading up to above our knees, to avoid thick vegetation on the banks.

Suddenly we spied one of the biggest long finned eels we had ever seen only a metre away from us. It was probably two and a half metres long and 20 centimetres wide at the head. What really terrified us was its big brother a metre behind – and almost twice as big!

This was my first encounter with a taniwha and there may be talk of exaggeration, but in land-locked lakes with wild fowl to feed on these creatures can reach incredible sizes.

Here’s a YouTube video of an eel in Foxton that gives an idea of how they can grow – and that was a little one!

The DOC (or previous DOC) employee that inspires or enthuses me most is:

Mike Imber. A man who had incredible knowledge of seabirds and other fauna and who, with quiet humour, ignored all the bureaucracy put in his way to help bring back from extinction some of New Zealand’s rarest taonga.

On a personal note

Most people don’t know that:

I was the first person in a hundred years to see, handle and band a taiko chick. Unfortunately that bird has never returned to its natal area but I am living in hope that it’s breeding in a very remote and secret part of the Chathams.

I also claim to be the very first person to have mowed my lawn this century! I was looking for something to be famous for, so at the turn of the millennium while people were worrying that the world would end, I started up my mower on the stroke of midnight. Well, each to their own!

In my spare time:

I get withdrawal symptoms when not working with animals at work. So at home I breed pure bred highland cattle (I now have 16 – anyone want to buy a pet?), suri alpacas, ducks and heritage breeds of chickens. I very occasionally breed labrador retrievers (including a national champion) but that takes up a lot of time.

The song that always cheers me up is:

Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Don’t go around tonight, well it’s bound to take your life, there’s a bad moon on the rise.”

It is very difficult catching kiwi in the full moon so is a good excuse to have the night off!

My happy place is:

My hacienda in the Tararua foothills and on the banks of the Otaki River. I have mature native kohekohe/pukatea/nikau forest as my garden and grow babacos, feijoas, peppers, tree tomatoes, avocados, bananas and other tropical fruits.

My best ever holiday was:

I visited the South American Altiplano with my wife Dynett. This is a strange mystical place with many peculiar properties. The rocks contain so much iron that they create strong magnetic fields causing parked cars to drive uphill by themselves.

Here’s a photo of a visit to some geysers 5000 metres above sea level. With the thinner air and reduced gravity, it’s hard to keep your feet on the ground.

A bit of casual levitation in South America

Deep and meaningful

My favourite quote is:

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” – Gary Snyder.

The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is:

“Work to live, don’t live to work.” You only have the one life, so enjoy it.

In work and life I am motivated by:

All animals have a limited number of heartbeats. The general rule is that animals with fast heartbeats, like stoats, have a short lifespan, while those with slow heartbeats, like tuatara, can live over a hundred years.

This motivates me to be calm, slow my heart rate down and complete my goals before the sum of my heartbeats nears the 95% percentile!

My conservation advice to New Zealanders is:

There is conservation and there is conversation. Walk the talk!

Question of the week

What’s one interesting fact that ordinary New Zealanders might not know about kiwi?

Only the male kiwi sits on the egg, right? Not so. Incubation is carried out by both parents of three of the five kiwi species.

On Stewart Island the young kiwi from previous years can also join in with egg sitting duties. In some big families the male Stewart Island kiwi can decide not to contribute at all.

By Inger Perkins, Partnerships Ranger in Hokitika

Geocaching – it sounded like something for someone else, perhaps an IT nerd even. But the idea of encouraging people to go out and explore some of the special places that DOC look after appealed to me and I decided to have a go during a sunny lunchtime.

Inger Perkins near a cache

After sitting at my desk wondering why my smartphone could not find my location and getting very frustrated I discovered that, just like a GPS, it was much better to have it out in the open with access to satellites.

The first thing I found, to my amazement, was that there were dozens of caches around the “cool little town” of Hokitika. I set off to find my first one. Each cache had a short introduction adding to the interest of the site, for example, a statue outside the Hokitika Museum, one block from the office has a name – Statue of Summer. I’ve lived and worked here for over seven years and I never knew that.

Hokitika Museum

This was fun. It brought out the eager and excited child in me. It was like heading off on an adventure with treasure at the end.

I then thought about our local special places and possible locations for placing my own geocaches. I chose two sites at the beautiful Lake Mahinapua just ten minutes from town and beside State Highway 6. There are lovely short forest walks there and I chose two of them for my first two caches. Finding a location that was beside the track, well hidden but easily found was challenging but the forest litter came in handy.

We will be hosting a ‘Picnic in the Park’ at Lake Mahinapua for Conservation Week, which will give me an opportunity to share my new found enthusiasm for geocaching and to encourage people to have a go right there and then.

Lake Mahinapua

We also have a magnificent new cycle trail, the West Coast Wilderness Trail, which crosses some conservation areas, so I thought picking a site with both foot and bike access would be fun. For my fourth, I have taken geocachers out to the serene Lake Kaniere and suggested more walks and a picnic there.

Kaniere Water Race Walkway

My fifth and final site was at one of our historic sites, the Ross Cemetery, with views across the tiny township of Ross to the Tasman Sea and up to the Paparoa Mountains. I included a question in the geocaching website entry about the cause of death of one of the cemetery residents, to encourage people to delve into the local history.

Ross Cemetery

The next challenge was to add some fun to the write up on the geocaching website, starting with names. My five caches are: Bellbirds will sing to you here (Bellbird Walk), X marks the spot (where rata vines have created a large cross), At the crossroads (cycleway and walkway), Will it be sunny (between Sunny Bight and Sunny Creek) and finally, Last resting place at the cemetery.

Bellbird Walk

A description of the site follows where I’ve encouraged geocachers to discover the walks, the views and explore some more and then the last entry is a clue to make finding the cache a tiny bit easier.

X marks the sport

Since putting the caches out, I have received a few excited logs from people who have found them, especially when they were the first – they love that!

One lady even called in to the office to meet me and tell me how much she loved what we were doing – she was up to around 800 caches. On her logs she noted

“We did the nice loop walk, it is a great spot. We may have to camp here the next time we pass this way. Thank you for bringing us to this lovely spot we probably won’t have come out here/known about it if it wasn’t for your cache”.

Makes it all worthwhile, and I’ll certainly be finding some more.

Take part in DOC’s National Geocaching Challenge for Conservation Week. You could be the Geocaching Challenge Champion, and win great prizes from Air New Zealand and Macpac. Find out more on the Conservation Week website.

By Kath Walker, Science Advisor in Nelson.

We’re close to realising the dream of the Million Dollar Mouse project, which is to eradicate the furry pests from the Antipodes Islands. We’re planning the final push for winter 2016.

Mice were introduced to the Antipodes Islands in the middle of the 20th century, probably by accident from a shipwreck in 1893. They are the only mammal pest on the islands, predating birds, invertebrates and plants.

For Antipodes Island’s native species to thrive, the mice must go.

Looking out from Antipodes Island to the mouse-free Bollons Island

A stark contrast

On mouse-free Adams Island in the subantarctic Auckland Island group, snipe are so abundant you hear them all the time and literally trip over them. They are so common that once as I trudged back to camp carrying a butterfly net by my side I accidentally scooped a snipe up in it!

Antipodes Island snipe

In stark contrast, mice are abundant on Antipodes Island and the endemic snipe are rare and quiet. Snipe eat insects and unfortunately mice do too. Lots of them.

Overrun

By late summer on Antipodes, when the grasses covering the island have seeded, the mouse numbers explode. They are everywhere. Even the rain gauge fills daily with drowned mice.

The mice have decimated the insect populations on Antipodes. Unlike Adams Island where you see large leaf vein slugs, weevils and beetles on every giant megaherb, charismatic invertebrates on Antipodes Island seem to be simply… missing. By removing so much of the invertebrate biomass, mice must indirectly be having a big impact on the number of snipe the island can support.

DOC scientist Graeme Elliott and I have spent a lot of time on both Adams and Antipodes islands studying wandering albatrosses. To us, the contrast between the mouse-free and mouse-full islands is dramatic.

This video shows mice on Gough Island (in the south Atlantic Ocean) that are large enough to eat alive albatross chicks – a future I hope never comes to Antipodes Island.

Weevil on Adams Island

It’s incredibly exciting, but also nerve-racking, to be so near to reaching that long-held dream of a mouse-free Antipodes Island.

Find out more about efforts to eradicate mice from Antipodes Island.

Join our community at facebook.com/milliondollarmouse.

Today’s photo of the week is from last Thursday’s mohua/yellowhead release in Eglinton valley, Fiordland.

The Mohua Charitable Trust supported the transfer, working in partnership with DOC and Ōraka Aparima Rūnanga.

A total of 80 birds were transferred from Anchor Island in Dusky Sound to their new home in Eglinton valley.

Mohua would once have numbered in the hundreds in the valley but numbers plummeted due to predation. DOC now undertakes intensive pest control in the valley to keep pest numbers low.

Find out more information about the mohua release on the DOC website.

A short 30-minute drive north of Wellington, Colonial Knob Scenic Reserve protects one of the more significant areas of native forest left in the Tawa-Porirua basin.

Last month DOC staff joined volunteers from BNZ and Mana Cycle Group at Colonial Knob to tackle one of the prevalent Dirty Dozen weeds that DOC is targeting as part of the War on Weeds.

The happy team about to get stuck in

BNZ’s Closed for Good programme sees BNZ staff leave the office for a day to help out with community projects.

The first task was to head up to one of the old reservoirs built in the late nineteenth century and remove the weed wandering willie.

Smile, you’re having fun!

This nasty weed smothers forest areas and prevents native seedlings from growing.The group was tasked with pulling it out and removing it for spraying. Sometimes they were up to their knees in the mud to do it!

Gumboots are a must

Coffee, muffins, the Dominion Post quiz and sunshine made for a fantastic morning tea. Well fed and watered volunteers work harder!

Wandering willie ready for spraying

The afternoon’s activities involved planting native trees, provided by Porirua City Council, alongside new mountain bike tracks built by Mana Cycle Group. Planting was concentrated on the barren areas to provide a visual and physical barrier for users.

Mana Cycle Group is developing Te Ara a Rangituhi – The Rangituhi Trails in partnership with Porirua City Council, DOC and local iwi Ngāti Toa. These will be a network of mountain biking and walking trails that enhance people’s experience of the area.

Planting the barren bits

The work completed on this day was a small step towards the wider goal: to enhance the biodiversity of the reserve and increase recreation in the area.

Without the generous help of volunteers this wouldn’t be possible.

Come behind the scenes and into the jobs, the challenges, the highlights, and the personalities of the people who work at the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Today we profile Uta Purcell, Information Officer in Nelson.

At work…

Some things I do in my job include:

Basic administrative work, answering emails and phone calls from New Zealand and around the world. I help visitors with their plans and bookings by providing up-to-date information and speaking from the personal experience of a tramper who ‘has been everywhere’ as my colleagues say.

My experience in tramping helps when I’m advising visitors

This helps achieve DOC’s vision by:

Helping a wide variety of people who have very diverse questions. It often leads to answering questions on natural history and raising their awareness of conservation.

The best bit about my job is:

Talking about my favourite things to do all around New Zealand. Without that enjoyment I could not do my job.

The loveliest DOC moment I’ve had so far is:

Feedback from international travellers and local outdoor enthusiasts about how rewarding a long tramp or short walk has been for them. People who are well prepared and equipped can still enjoy their experience even in poor weather.

The family in 2014

The DOC employee that inspires or enthuses me most is: 

Botanist Shannel Courtney, DOC’s Threatened Plant Officer in Nelson. He is passionate about native flora. He also makes time to lead Botanical Society field trips and camps, where he inspires and answers our repeated questions with endless patience.

On a personal note…

My happy place is:

Inside a tent in a remote spot or walking along ridges well above the bushline.

Visiting the Himalayas in 2009

My greatest sporting moment was when:

I participated in the Buller Half Marathon, walking it in just under three hours, a good time for my age group.

The thing I’m most looking forward to in the next six months is:

Briefly retracing my roots on a trip to Germany to celebrate a family event.

In my spare time:

I struggle joyfully to maintain my garden, read, sing in a World Music Choir and botanise.

Before working at DOC:

I was a bookseller, antiquarian, editorial assistant in Europe and New Zealand. I started working at DOC six years ago when I retired from many years as a school librarian.

Deep and meaningful…

My favourite quote is:

“Live simply so others may simply live.” – Gandhi.

The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is:

“Worrying doesn’t fix anything.”

In work and life I am motivated by:

Christian ethics, to live with a purpose, do a job well, be helpful in every way.

My conservation advice to New Zealanders is:

Explore the outdoors and participate in a practical/hands on manner to gain an appreciation of our natural assets and help towards their continued survival.

Boarding the boat to Blumine Island, Marlborough

Question of the week…

What’s your favourite breakfast food?

Two or three pieces of fresh fruit, followed by porridge, green tea, and if I feel that I still need more to fill me up for the day ahead, I’ll add one or two slices of Vogel toast with ginger marmalade.

By Kate Hebblethwaite, Senior Ranger in Te Anau.

In September DOC joined Real Journeys on a Dusky Sound voyage, inviting conservation-minded people to take part in a unique expedition aboard the Milford Wanderer to one of the most remote parts of Fiordland.

Not a bad way to start the morning – Cascade Cove, Dusky Sound

DOC has a vision to make Dusky Sound one of the most intact ecosystems in the world. This trip offered people a great way to experience some of the conservation work taking place in Dusky Sound helping to achieve this goal.

This is the first time Real Journeys and DOC have partnered in such a project and, to the delight of both organisations, within four days all 29 places on the cruise had sold out.

View over Anchor Island, Dusky Sound

The four day cruise visited four of Dusky’s remote islands – Anchor, Indian, Pigeon and Resolution – where DOC is undertaking conservation work, and the historic site of Pickersgill Harbour. Captain Cook based his crew at Pickersgill Harbour for five weeks in 1773, setting up an astronomer’s observatory to fix the longitude and latitude of the headland and brewing New Zealand’s first beer!

The Milford Wanderer at Anchor Island

With the able assistance of local DOC rangers, participants spent day two on pest-free Anchor Island, undertaking a variety of work including trap checking, kiwi monitoring and track maintenance. Anchor Island is home to a significant kākāpō population, as well as mohua, saddleback/tieke, and little spotted kiwi.

Maori food/storage pits on Pigeon Island, Dusky Sound

However, life aboard the Milford Wanderer wasn’t all hard graft and muddy boots. Passengers also enjoyed all the usual comforts and elements of a Real Journeys Discovery Expedition, including a heli-flight, kayak outing, and lots of delicious home baking. In the evening, participants heard from DOC staff about conservation projects in the area.

South Island robin on Anchor Island

The cruise was a resounding success with great positive feedback from the largely Southland-based passengers. The trip raised over $7,500 for DOC’s Dusky Sound Restoration and Conservation programme.

Passengers take part in kiwi telemetry tracking on Anchor Island

DOC is working with Real Journeys to make the Dusky Sound conservation cruise a regular feature. Next year’s Conservation Discovery Expedition will take place on 19-23 September 2016.

Today’s photo is of a rare white variant of the kākābeak/ngutukākā flower which once grew at the Tiniroto cliffs near Wairoa but has not been seen in the wild since the 1950s.

Last week around 100 of these plants, grown from seeds by Crown Research Institute Scion, were handed over to East Coast iwi Ngāti Kohatu and Ngāti Hinehika to be planted back on their ancestral lands.

Scion had been working together with DOC, Landcare Research and the Ngutukākā Recovery Group for four years to propagate the white kākābeak seeds and seedlings in its nurseries.

More information is available on the DOC website.

By Raj Palanisamy, DOC Volunteer

I have volunteered for DOC for over a year now. For the most part I assist with data entry— transferring hut log book and biodiversity data into a digital spreadsheet. While I enjoy the job, I was eager to get into the field and understand the hard work behind the data.

A rainy day in Ruahine Forest Park

I had the opportunity to head into the Ruahine Forest with DOC rangers Nathan Lightbourne, Tim Paki and Richard Taiaroa on a mission to check the Rangawahia Hut and undertake some clearing of the track.

It was raining cats and dogs! Nathan came to pick me up, and after assessing my clothes, he provided gear a little more suitable.

Arched-wooden bridge on the Rangiwahia Hut Track

While Nathan and Richard started clearing fallen branches and slippery stones on the track, Tim and I headed towards the hut for the monthly check up.

The check up involved tidying up, making sure the facilities were up to scratch, and checking on firewood. We were happy to see the hut in good condition after being used by 45 people in the last month!

Rangiwahia Hut on a sunnier day

I know trampers appreciate a well maintained track—nothing beats it! On my day out I learnt that a clear and maintained track comes as a result of efforts by hard working DOC staff.

By the end of our day out, the fallen branches and slippery stones on the walkway had all been removed. The track was clear and I didn’t need to watch where I was putting my feet. A great job by Nathan and Richard.

The maintained Rangiwahia Hut Track

I have witnessed people working on tea plantations in pouring rain to pluck tea leaves, and this track work reminded me of that. Work for which one needs dedication and commitment to finish the task.

I don’t think money motivates people to be dedicated and committed but instead it’s an individual’s persona. Doing a good service for the people comes with a good heart and I was proud of working with Nathan, Tim and Richard on this occasion.

Thanks to the Palmerston North DOC Office for a fantastic day!

Help DOC by volunteering for conservation, there are lots of ways you can get involved! Find more information about volunteering on the DOC website.

By Lou Sanson, DOC Director-General

Peter Daniel

Peter Daniel

I’d like to acknowledge the sad loss of Peter Daniel, who passed away last month. Peter was the longest serving Kapiti Island ranger, stationed there from 1976 to 1998. He championed pest eradication efforts and the creation of the Kapiti Marine Reserve in 1992, one of the first to be established in New Zealand. Peter was a big believer in sustainability and had a strong passion for his conservation work. He will be sadly missed.

Takahē release

Wednesday’s release of 15 takahē into Fiordland National Park marks an important milestone for the Takahē Recovery Programme. We now have 60 breeding pairs in safe pest-free locations and with 15 more birds to be released in the coming months, this is a great achievement for species recovery. Huge thanks to our team in the Takahē Recovery Programme and our partners Mitre 10 and Ngāi Tahu.

DOC Ranger Martin Genet and Mary Harrington from the local Te Anau Mitre 10 store releasing the first takahē Lady Alice

Working with Ngāti Whare

In October I visited Ngāti Whare with our DOC staff at Murapara. The Ngāti Whare rohe includes Whirinaki Forest, one of the most spectacular giant podocarp forests in the world. It also includes a significant kiwi recovery programme behind Minginui.

Ngāti Whare negotiated a conservation accord with their Treaty Settlement which includes regular consultation, a joint Conservation Management Plan and working together on business planning within their rohe. It also includes a special Minginui Agreement to restore assets in the Minginui area.

Our discussions focused on our agreement to work closely on the Conservation Management Plan, as well as how we can work with Ngāi Tūhoe to promote both the Te Urewera and Whirinaki Forest as a potential tourism and nature resource.

From left: Te Waiti Rangiwai, CEO Ngāti Whare; Mei Hardy-Birch; John Sutton; and Bronco Carson, Chair Ngāti Whare.

Ngai Tahu Tourism: Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs

While in Rotorua, we visited the Ngāi Tahu Rainbow Springs tourist attraction in Rotorua to thank them for the huge amount of work they’ve done towards our kiwi recovery programme. The kiwi incubation facility started in 1995 when Cam Speedy brought in a kiwi egg from the wild and asked them to try to hatch it. By 1999 they had hatched 15 chicks and now are servicing DOC and 16 separate kiwi community groups with over 1500 kiwi chicks now released back into the wild. With a 70% survival rate, this is a huge contribution to kiwi recovery.

Over the last 20 years Ngāi Tahu Tourism has put $5 million directly into the kiwi programme. They are now rebranding Rainbow Springs as Rainbow Springs Nature Park. Their vision is to create the world’s best nature park showcasing New Zealand wildlife and flora. With 200,000 visitors currently visiting Rainbow Springs each year, they’re confident the rebranding will boost this and encourage even more international tourists to discover ‘Our Nature’ through interactive experiences.

Rotorua Canopy Tours – towards predator free NZ

While in Rotorua I was pleased to be hosted by James and his team at Rotorua Canopy Tours in the Dansey Road Scenic Reserve, which is now ranked as the number one outdoor activity in the North Island on TripAdvisor.

They started the experience three years ago with significant help from our Rotorua team, in particular Ron Keyzer and Rhys Burns. They have grown this product from 9,000 visitors to 20,000 in three years and now employ 20 staff.

The three hour tour takes you through the canopy of a virgin podocarp forest while the tour guide tells you their story and vision for predator-free landscapes. It’s more than a zipline experience – the highlight is a robin that comes out and eats mealworms from your hand.

Visitors pay $139 each and are asked to donate to the vision for a predator-free sanctuary. The team now have 100 hectares of predator control and will increase this to 500 hectares using GoodNature traps. They’ve also set a target of selling 1000 GoodNature traps to visitors to manage pests in their own backyards, with the proceeds going back into their Canopy Conservation Trust.

This is such an inspiring story of how storytelling around the vision of predator-free New Zealand can be a market leader in the New Zealand tourism industry.

The Rotorua Canopy Tours team – from left Gary Coker, James Fitzgerald (CEO) and Alex Barr

Goodnature expand their operations

Last month I visited the new Wellington premises of Goodnature. They have built new development and manufacturing facilities and are able to build over 600 units a week of their A24 automatic multi-kill traps (with capacity to extend to 1100 a week). Goodnature are expanding their operations including a planned launch into the UK market where the A24 has been passed into legislation after meeting the UK’s strict humane laws. (Squirrels are the equivalent of possums there!)

Craig Bond, Robert Reid and Stu Barr of Goodnature

We’re using their technology in a number of successful operations like the recent knockdown and constant control of the rat population at Harts Hill near Te Anau and converting to their traps at Boundary Stream Mainland Island. Significantly, they’re now looking at a long-life lure system using hydrogen cell technology that might only need checking every six months. They’re also developing a possum trap which can be converted to kill feral cats; and traps for introduced mink, mongoose and grey squirrels overseas.

DOC invested $500,000 into Goodnature in a public/private partnership six years ago.

The new hydrogen cell technology is being developed to create a lure that needs checking less often

Fonterra/DOC Living Waters Partnership

DOC and Fonterra are working together to improve the natural habitats of waterways in significant dairying regions around New Zealand.. Over the last few months we have:

• Put over 25,000 plants in the ground
• Increased our research focus on freshwater restoration
• Hosted two community and farmer engagement days on freshwater restoration
• Progressed an MOU with the QEII Trust
• Increased our predator trapping efforts across three sites

At Te Waihora we have developed a dramatic wetland restoration in the shape of a tuna/eel with the co-director of Lincoln University’s Landscope Designlab, Mick Abbott, which will be clearly visible for all aircraft landing at Christchurch Airport.

The first Living Water project plant-out with Te Ara Kakariki at Te Waihora

By Manisha Patel, Outreach and Education Coordinator

Happy Conservation Week! It’s our favourite week of the year—a week to celebrate all things conservation by getting out and enjoying nature.

Healthy Nature Health People — the theme for Conservation Week 2015

Conservation Week 2015 runs from the 1–8 November and this year it’s all about “Healthy Nature Healthy People”.

Research shows that regularly taking part in activities in the outdoors leads to improved physical and mental health. This year we are encouraging New Zealanders to get out into nature and become aware of the link between a healthy natural environment and their own health and well-being.

Anchorage Bay

Whats happening?

There are over 130 events up and down the country organised by DOC staff and partners. These events range from a guided snorkel day in the Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve to kids triathlon training at Mountfort Park in Manurewa to a Heli–bike/ Heli-Hike adventure in the Paparoas. Other events include weeding and gecko hunting in Opunake, a community rodent hunt in Rotorua and a family picnic at Mount Thomas near Christchurch.

This year DOC has introduced the National Geocaching Challenge. Caches (containers) have been placed specially for Conservation Week with great prizes up for grabs from Air New Zealand and Macpac. Geocaching is a modern day treasure hunt using GPS or your mobile phone to find caches in the great outdoors. Popular with both children and adults it’s a great way to discover new places.

Happy participants in the National Geocaching Challenge

Find a Whio

Back again this year is the Find a Whio competition, which is a virtual hunt to find a whio. It’s designed for children, but it’s something that everyone can enjoy – and there is an amazing whio adventure to be won!

The ‘Find a Whio’ online competition is back

Habitat Heroes

Habitat Heroes is a new competition designed for primary school aged children. It encourages students to go out, explore a local place and think about how they can make a difference. Three teaching and learning resources with curriculum links have been created to guide teachers on simple scientific tests to assess the health of a local natural environment.

Habitat Heroes encourages children to think about the natural environment

For more information and ideas for how you can celebrate Conservation Week visit the DOC website.

By Jose Watson, Communications Advisor in Hokitika

As part of Conservation Week this year DOC and Genesis Energy have launched a new version of the “Find a Whio” competition, an online game where participants search a map of New Zealand to find a virtual whio/blue duck.

Whio/blue duck

The competition was launched on the DOC website over the weekend and runs until the end of November.

There are less than 3,000 whio left in New Zealand, and because they are only found in very specific places, most New Zealanders never have the opportunity to discover them for themselves. The game gives New Zealanders the chance to search for and learn more about our native duck.

Find a Whio

How to play

Over 180,000 kilometres of rivers have been mapped and participants in the game have to search in places where they think whio might be living, which involves clicking through the map layers. Along the way you’ll come across other New Zealand species and find out about threats to whio.

You can enter the game as many times as you like. Every whio found is an entry in to the draw to win the grand prize. The more whio found the more entries you will have in the draw.

This year we’ve also removed the age restriction – which means keen adults can have a go too.

Play the “Find a Whio” game now on the DOC website.

Found a whio!

The grand prize

The grand prize includes a whio adventure on one of New Zealand’s wild rivers, flights for one adult and a companion, airport transfers and accommodation for three nights with meals. The adventure will take place at either Taupo, Nelson or Queenstown.

Last year’s Conservation Week winner Sarah Ridsdale went on a whio adventure on Mangatepopo Stream with DOC rangers. She shared a video from her adventure on YouTube.

“Find a Whio” is a joint project between DOC and Genesis Energy developed as part of the Whio Forever programme which aims to secure whio in the wild.

By Chloe Barnes, Communications Advisor

To celebrate Conservation Week we challenged DOC staff around the country to find a picture of people in nature from the past and asked them to recreate it using props, costumes and a bit of artistic license. There were some great results!

The Marine Ecosystems Team staged a whale stranding scene complete with whale (a member of the team), fake facial hair, and a seamless recreation of the pose.

On Matiu/Somes Island rangers Diane Batchelor and Alisha Sheriff recreated the WWII Women’s Royal Navy Service semaphore to passing ships.

The prize for biggest transformation goes to Technical Advisor Don Neale, who was originally pictured at Torea Rocks in 1966 and created the pose again — over 40 years later.

New Plymouth Ranger Dave Rogers took on the challenge of recreating his distinctive 1978 look, complete with an eye-catching and fashion-forward possum pelt-belt. The 1978 photo also features Bruce Wallace. Dave is joined in the 2015 recreation by Denise Goodman.

The National Office Legal Team chose to a stage photo from the opening of the Taputeranga snorkel trail in 2011.

Finally a photo from Davina Hunt in 1995 feeding kākāpō on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou, and in the same pose 20 years later.

Thanks to all the staff for helping to celebrate Conservation Week and embracing the challenge to produce these dramatic recreations of scenes from the past.

By Sarah Cox, Senior Brand/Campaign Advisor

The 2015 Conservation Week National Geocaching Challenge has been getting fantastic results as keen participants race to find the special caches hidden all over New Zealand.

The Clearwater family geocaching near Dunedin

DOC staff from Kaitaia in the north to Rakiura/Stewart Island in the south have been out hiding caches (containers) for members of the public to find. The challenge runs throughout Conservation Week and links perfectly to this year’s Healthy Nature, Healthy People theme.

The Hawke’s Bay staff get creative with their caches—DOC Hut replicas, all named after huts in the Kaweka Forest Park

The best thing about geocaching is its ability to encourage large numbers of people to get outside amongst nature.

The challenge has attracted nationwide attention from those completely new to geocaching, as well as those with lots of experience, and we’ve even been contacted out of the blue by people wanting to donate prizes!

A big thanks to our three main partners during the organisation phase. The Collective agreed to donate containers and Macpac and Air New Zealand have lined up some jaw-droppingly amazing prizes.

Check out the photos posted on Wildside New Zealand and see some of the feedback we’ve received so far:

“What a day, All Blacks win, and a cracking afternoon mopping up Arthur’s Pass DOC caches.” – Tony Sharpe

“Geocaching at Monckton Reserve Central Hawke’s Bay. Beautiful spot. Thanks for placing these caches. We can’t wait to find the rest!” – Amy Blakesly

Although the competition closes on Tuesday 10th November, the caches will remain in the wild so that the public can continue to hunt for them indefinitely.

A big thanks to all DOC staff around the country involved in creating, placing and logging caches for the competition, and to our three partners for helping make the challenge happen.

You can sign up for the National Geocaching Challenge and find out about other events and activities happening for Conservation Week on the DOC website.

New Zealand’s rugged mountain peaks, native forests and pristine lakes can now be viewed from anywhere in the world!

Seven of the Great Walks have been mapped by Google Maps using their Google Trekker technology. The maps document the awe-inspiring sights of the Rakiura, Milford, Heaphy, Lake Waikaremoana, Routeburn, Kepler and Abel Tasman Coast tracks.

Prime Minister John Key launched the maps yesterday with the Google Trekker inventor himself, Steven Silverman, at the Air New Zealand Collaboration and Innovation Centre in Auckland.

The mapping project has been a work in progress for DOC and Google since 2012, involving local iwi, DOC’s geospatial team, marketing team, and local staff who assisted with planning the trips.

GIS Analyst Peter Hiemstra accompanied the Google Trekker on most of the walks, documenting the journey in pictures along the way.

We take you on a visual journey behind the scenes:

Routeburn Track

Matt Jenke, the Google Trekker experiencing the stunning views of the Routeburn Track with Peter Hiemstra and Iwi rep Riki Mules.

Kepler Track

Google Trekker Matt is just a speck against the landscape!

Milford Track

Check out that sun! Matt the Google Trekker was blessed with one of the few days in a year Milford Track is without rain.

However it didn’t last long… when Matt reached Mackinnon pass, the clouds well and truly made their way back over. He looks a bit like an alien surrounded by the clouds in the shot above don’t you think?

Rakiura Track

Matt sets off from the golden sands of Maori Beach on Rakiura Track. It once was the site of a Maori Village but later became a settlement based around a Sawmill. The remains of a boiler and a steam engine are worth checking out nearby.

The team completed the Rakiura Track in a staggering 7 hours! It was certainly time for a good beer.

How do you celebrate your hike?

Abel Tasman Coast Track

The team stopped to admire the golden sands of Abel Tasman Coast Track on a beautiful day!

Heaphy Track

The Heaphy Track needed a fair bit of planning since it’s the longest of the Great Walks (78.4 kilometres). Three sets of heavy batteries offered around 18 hours of walking time in total, and the challenge was to complete it 2 days, carrying 30 kilograms!

The boys had an amazing journey across some of the most beautiful areas of New Zealand. It’s fantastic that everyone can now experience them too – virtually – on Google maps.

Nicola Toki

Welcome to the Threatened Species Ambassador update! I’m Nic Toki and this is my second time around in DOC, and it is kind of my second nature to rave about our wildlife, so I thought the title might tick the boxes.

I’m only a couple of months into the job, but it’s been a very busy time, during which time I have travelled to a bunch of places, including Taupo, Rotorua, Franz Josef, Abel Tasman National Park, Auckland and Wellington.

Mostly I’ve been catching up with relevant staff working on threatened species, and getting the word out about this new role. You can see some of what I’ve been up to on the DOC website.

Rowi release, Franz Josef

In October I was lucky enough to attend the largest ever rowi kiwi release at Okarito, just North of Franz Josef. When I last worked for DOC there were only 150-200 rowi left on the planet, so to release fifty of our rarest species in one day was an awesome achievement.

Rowi kiwi

During that time, I met the kiwi team who blew me away with their passion, knowledge and dedication. The rowi team spent all day Wednesday on Motuora Island locating and catching fifty juvenile rowi for release (helped by one of our four-legged rangers, the beautiful Rein, who you can even find on Instagram). Despite such a big day, which meant they arrived back in the very early hours of the morning, they were up at the crack of dawn to health-check the rowi before the birds’ first foray into their new wild home.

Nicola Toki and Franz Josef DOC Ranger Heath Sinclair transferring rowi

The local Franz Josef community were there to see the rowi before their release, and we were hosted by the Te Wao Nui Forest Lodge, who are hugely supportive of DOC and the rowi programme. Richard Bungeroth, Te Wao Nui’s general manager is passionate about this local species of kiwi, and in addition to hosting our celebration before the rowi release, last month he hosted a Kiwi Fun Run fundraiser in Franz Josef (in fairly inclement conditions) which had a great turn out from the locals.

Mark Davies, Nicola Toki, Richard Bungeroth and Jo Macpherson celebrating the rowi release

Along with the rangers and some of the community, I was lucky enough to be part of the team releasing rowi into the bush on Okarito Spit, and the rangers showed everyone present how to handle a kiwi and let everyone there release ‘their’ kiwi into a suitable burrow for their first night in the wild. I was chuffed to be a part of it and very proud of a (by now quite tired) kiwi team. Thanks for having me guys!

Kiwi transport box

Local community trapper Ian James posted a photo up on Twitter to show that our young kiwi have already been out fossicking around, which is an awesome sign of them settling in to their new homes!

Critter of the week

I’ve got a weekly slot on Jesse Mulligan’s Afternoons show on National Radio, usually at about 1:30 pm on a Friday.

Jesse’s main criteria are that I pick things to talk about which are the opposite of our charismatic megafauna (uncharismatic microfauna?).

Knobbled weevil

So far we have traversed the wonders of Archey’s frogs, knobbled weevils, bat flies, Canterbury mudfish and leaf-veined slugs. I’m always keen on possible critters to discuss, so if you have a species that you feel doesn’t get enough kudos, let me know, and I’ll try to get it on National Radio.

Canterbury mudfish

Virtual Great Walker

At the beginning of Conservation Week I was lucky enough to join the amazing kids from Hillcrest Primary School who had won our “Virtual Great Walker” competition.

Showing Northland gecko Kermit to the kids from Hillcrest

Over 150 entries from schools around New Zealand were received. Students had to send in entries that showed their commitment and passion for learning about our Great Walks, as well as clocking up some kilometres to show they understood the distances involved.

Nicola holding Kermit

Hillcrest Primary schoolchildren went above and beyond with their obvious passion and dedication to learning about their local nature and Great Walks and DOC and Air New Zealand felt they truly had demonstrated what the competition was all about. The kids were flown in from Hamilton to Nelson by Air New Zealand and were treated to two nights on the Abel Tasman Great Walk in Abel Tasman National Park with some of the DOC team. I was lucky enough to join them along with ‘Kermit’, my Northland green gecko (yes I have a permit) to have a yarn to the students about threatened species. They knew a lot about our nature!

You can see for yourself how their journey began with this story featured on TV3 News. It was great to see kids getting out of the classroom to experience nature. Conservation Week also featured highly.

The DOC Threatened Species Ambassador is proudly supported by Air New Zealand.

By Lou Sanson, DOC Director-General

George McMillan

Sadly George McMillan (OBE) passed away in October.

George was Commissioner of Crown Lands when DOC was established and managed our National Parks and Reserves until Ken Piddington was appointed as DOC’s first Director-General. He became Landcorp‘s first CEO.

Many DOC staff remember working with George as he tirelessly negotiated significant new conservation land purchases with our Nature Heritage Fund and assisted Maori landowners with an economic outcome in return for conservation agreements on Stewart Island and in Southern Fiordland.

He was a very strong member of the New Zealand Conservation Authority. He believed in protecting large and special tracts of our conservation heritage and spent 20 years working with DOC to protect the very best examples of remaining private land to add to the public conservation estate. His ability to work with landowners to close a deal was legendary.

He has made a huge contribution to the land and protected ecosystems we now manage and is one of our great unsung public servants, leaving such a permanent legacy for Kiwis and conservation.

Bill Ballantine

I’d also like to acknowledge the tremendous contribution made to conservation by Dr Bill Ballantine, who passed away on 1 November.

Bill was widely regarded as the father of marine conservation in this country, driving the creation of the Marine Reserves Act 1971 and our first marine reserve at Leigh in 1977.

So much of the conservation we do today was influenced by Bill’s body of work and a lot of our staff will know him and his work. We are so pleased our Auckland staff got him to the recent Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary announcement last month. The conservation community will miss him greatly.

Conservation Week

Last week we celebrated Conservation Week throughout the country with our theme ‘Healthy Nature Healthy People’.

Conservation Week 2015

I’d like to thank all the staff who are contributing to the 160 events throughout New Zealand, and the project team for pulling it all together.

Healthy Nature Healthy People focuses us on the role that we play as an organisation in contributing to the wellbeing of New Zealanders, and the protection and enjoyment of our treasured natural environments.

We all know from experience that we feel better when we’ve been enjoying the outdoors. Over Labour weekend my daughter Georgia and I cycled the Timber Trail, the Old Coach Road and tramped into the new Waihohonu Hut in Tongariro National Park. Experiences like this certainly help us appreciate how much difference nature makes to our lives both mentally and physically, and this is something DOC can share with all kiwis.

Georgia Sanson cycling the Timber Trail

Transpower partnership

Last week we signed a renewed partnership agreement with Transpower. Their network includes 12,000 kilometres of transmission line and 40,000 structures, and they regularly work with 11,000 landowners to access their network on private land. With 5% of their assets crossing DOC land, we are one of the largest relationships they have.

This agreement will help us work better together and share data that will benefit conservation, such as adding Transpower access routes to our maps to enhance public access to recreation.

As well as the overarching agreement, they’ve committed $100,000 to conservation work in the Grebe Valley near Lake Manapouri and have put $1 million a year into a community care fund to help fund projects like Predator Free Crofton Downs.

We’re now in discussions about working together on other areas where our interests overlap, such as wilding pines, pest and weed issues associated with the national power grid, and Cook Strait marine opportunities.

Transpower’s Jon Bright, Raewyn Moss and Alison Andrews with DOC’s Lou Sanson, Beth Masser and Paul Hughes.

DOC innovation with Kiwirail

Any staff who have recently travelled State Highway 2 to National Park may have seen the unusual sight of the Makatote Viaduct covered in plastic wrap.

This was the result of a DOC negotiation aimed at preventing any of the structure’s original lead-based paint from getting into the surrounding stream while they repaint the structure.

Additionally Kiwirail have put forward a predator control programme around the Makatote River to improve the breeding outcomes of whio through the Genesis Energy Whio Forever programme.

Makatote Viaduct under wraps while painting work is carried out

China and New Zealand working together for conservation

Last week Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry and I joined Ambassador Wang Lutong at the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in the Firth of Thames, along with members of local Iwi Ngāti Paoa and our partners Fonterra.

The ambassador announced a decision by the Chinese Government to protect 4,000 hectares of important wetland in Bohai Bay, China – the main stopover for godwits and red knots migrating from Alaska to spend the summer in New Zealand. We’re also working towards a Memorandum of Understanding agreement with the Chinese government for the further protection of our shorebirds in China.

Visiting the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in the Firth of Thames

Nurturing skills development while growing conservation

While at Miranda, the Minister and I also visited the nursery at Te Whangai Trust where, with the support of the Ministry of Social Development, Department of Corrections, NZ Police and DOC, they have planted 1 million eco-sourced native plants through their work and life skills training programme.

The vision behind Te Whangai is to provide training for unemployed beneficiaries – giving them valuable work and life skills while growing conservation.

They have so far placed 360 of their trainees in full time work and education and currently have 38 trainees at three sites near Auckland. They’ve received substantial funding and support from the Ministry of Social Development, the Tindall Foundation, NZ Lotteries, philanthropic groups and NZ Steel. They now generate 60% of their income from selling native plants, planting and advisory services.

We will be advancing our partnerships with programmes like Te Whangai, especially through the new agreement with Department of Corrections that was signed last week.

Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry with Te Whangai Trust’s George Harawira and current trainees.

A trip to the Queenstown Visitor Centre

I recently visited our new Queenstown Visitor Centre, where the team includes French, Russian, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese and German speakers. With such a range of languages in the team, they are well placed to welcome the thousands of visitors who put Queenstown on their itinerary every year — last year they had 80,000.

Since we moved into the new Visitor Centre, visitor numbers have grown 40%. At this time of year, their key role is relaying information on the Routeburn Track, particularly avalanche safety, and selling large quantities of New Zealand’s biggest selling map, the Routeburn Map.

The multi-lingual team at the Queenstown Visitor Centre