Thanks to partnerships with landowners, schools, community groups, local councils, commitment from volunteers, and funding from groups such as WWF and the Tindall Foundation, the team is steadily creating more of these "green dots" and native birds are beginning to visit. In time it is hoped that the kakariki will once more be seen on the plains.
Seeing the greenway grow is what drives Lyall, whose love for nature began early in life: "I grew up in an early lifestyle block from the 1950s and I was one of seven boys - we lived in an environment where we had a stream as a boundary, and I enjoyed doing all the things country children did, exploring..."
"I was fascinated by the life in the stream, the frogs and birds. We then brought a property on the West Coast and that increased my awareness of the beauty of native bush," he says. "It's fantastic when I see a tui or bellbird here in Canterbury."
It's still a rare event though: "We have had recent immigrant English people ringing us up asking what the big, black bird is in their backyard with a funny white mark on its throat, making a racket," he says, smiling.
As well as looking for volunteers to help plant trees, they're always hunting for trustees - particularly those with different skill sets: "I'm a great believer that people on a trust board should be from all walks of life, you get new people with a different perspective and it shakes things up," Lyall says. "The more the merrier."
An electrician by trade, he is also a local councillor, and the governance experience from the latter comes in handy in his role as chair: "You get used to the decision-making framework, and a fairly large part of it is making sure we keep the day-to-day decision-making going, ensuring as a chairman that other trustees are having their voice heard. It's all with the focus of building that pathway, and increasing biodiversity and inspiring that interest in local people."
One of the ways they do the latter is with the Canterbury Plantout, a free catered day out, where volunteers can be part of a large working bee planting native trees. Te Ara Kakariki organise buses to pick up volunteers and each has a speaker on board giving talks on everything from bug life to the diversity of past forests. About 450 or so casual volunteers now come to the event to put the trees in the ground.
Ecologists map out the plantings carefully, each plant is protected with a weed mat and plastic guard, and volunteers are taught how to plant. This means that they have an exceptionally high success rate - 97 per cent of plantings take root and grow.
As much as their work is about restoring fragments of native biodiversity from the past, Lyall and his fellow volunteers have their eye firmly on the future: "My dream for the Trust is to get into a partnership that provides reasonable funding for three to five years, and to increasingly partner with our Canterbury farmers," he says.
From his day job as an electrician, to his volunteer role at Te Ara Kakariki, it's all about making the right connections, with powerful results.
Find out how you can get involved in Te Ara Kakariki's Canterbury Plantout or other volunteering opportunities, contact Brooke: www.kakariki.org.nz. Or find a conservation group near you supported by WWF and The Tindall Foundation and run by volunteers: http://www.wwf.org.nz/what_we_do/community_funding/
This article is published as a partnership between WWF and Element. Like what you see? Sign up to our newsletter. We're also on Facebook and Twitter.
