Data collated by the Kiwi Coast showed that over $1.7 million worth of resources went into participating conservation projects in 2016. Over a third of this is accounted for by unpaid voluntary labour.
Kiwi Coast Coordinator, Ngaire Tyson says “A phenomenal amount of work is voluntarily carried out by dedicated hard working people involved in community-led conservation projects on the Kiwi Coast every day. They may volunteer time to do endless paper work and admin for their projects or they may be a trapper out there in the rain keeping the traps going to protect kiwi chicks. Others sit out in the dark recording kiwi calls to monitor results. They do all this, year after year, knowing that they are making a huge difference.”
The second highest contributor, resourcing 15% of the work on the Kiwi Coast was the local Department of Conservation office in Whangarei. This included staff time to service traps for kiwi and pateke recovery, provision of specialist technical advice, monitoring and support for projects on Public Conservation Land.
The Northland Regional Council provided $204,161 worth of pest control products and Community Pest Control Area support. This accounted for approximately 12% of the direct resources going into Kiwi Coast projects, but did not include staff time.
The Reconnecting Northland Programme provided around 10% of resources going into the Kiwi Coast, including funding the Kiwi Coast Coordinator (through funding from the Tindall Foundation) and contributing to operational costs (through funding from Foundation North).
The Department of Conservation Community Fund also resourced approximately 10% of the work being carried out by groups and projects, with the bulk of this paying professional predator trappers to assist projects control predators and help threatened native wildlife to flourish.
Together groups generated $94,939 of their own income from donations and sponorships, providing about 6% of the combined resources going into projects. Income derived from fundraising is highly valued by groups as often the money is used for essential operating costs that are difficult to resource from contestable funding sources and there no lengthy reports are required!
Foundation North, the Kiwis for Kiwi Trust and Nga Whenua Rahui each contributed approximately 3% to the resources going into conservation work along the Kiwi Coast. Other contributors included WWF-New Zealand, the QEII National Trust, the Far North District Council and the Ministry for the Environment.
Twenty-nine projects and organisations participated in the exercise, providing information for the 2015/16 financial year on the resourcing of monitoring, pest control products, labour, communications, administration, education, advocacy, restoration, and other associated costs.
