Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust launches new model for conservation investment

(Back row, left to right): Rayonier Matariki Forests Bay of Plenty forest manager Rob Schoonderwoerd, Wairere Mahi project manager Mohi Korohina, Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust chief executive Louise Saunders, Wairere Mahi general manager Tim Aoake and Wairere Mahi kaimahi Wiremu Johnston. (Front row): Wairere Mahi kaimahi Henry Burton.

Bay of Plenty businesses are being offered an opportunity to back local environmental projects with the launch of a pilot investment model aiming to fill gaps left by other conservation funding drying up.

Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust chief executive Louise Saunders said its Kaimai Mamaku Restoration Project’s new digital investment platform was designed to make it easier for local businesses to give back to the environment.

It aimed to connect businesses interested in investing in conservation with specific projects happening in the 300,000ha Kaimai-Mamaku area along the Bay of Plenty and Waikato border.

It comes as the $1.2 billion Jobs for Nature programme wraps up and other funding sources for conservation work tighten up. A report commissioned by Predator Free New Zealand Trust this year found funding for grassroots conservation groups in New Zealand was “drying up”, the NZ Herald reported.

Sanders said the conclusion of Jobs for Nature funding meant many pest control projects around Aotearoa had to shut down.

“We’re still working with Government, councils and philanthropic funds, but the reality is those funds are never going to provide the quantum of funding that we need, at the scale that we need it, to deliver the conservation mahi this country needs.”

The Kaimai-Mamaku area. Image / Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku

She said it was “easy to be really despondent in this industry”, but she hoped the pilot platform was one way to alleviate the sense of helplessness some felt.

The first partnership between a national business and iwi-led group has been established through the Kaimai Mamaku Restoration Project platform.

Rayonier Matariki Forests, which grows and manages 120,000ha of forest from the top of the North Island to the base of the South Island, had partnered with restoration group Wairere Mahi.

“It’s a trail-blazing partnership. We will take the [lessons] from this and fast-track more of the same across the rohe [area],” Saunders said.

It would initially focus on pest control and tree planting in a 7ha area around Killarney Lakes, part of a larger block of Ngāti Hinerangi land leased by the company for pine forestry.

Rayonier forest manager Rob Schoonderwoerd said this partnership was about kaitiakitanga [guardianship] and whanaungatanga [connection].

A view of Waikato from the top of Mt Te Aroha. Image / Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust

“It’s not just about getting rid of pests or growing more native trees. For us, this is a lifetime partnership with Ngāti Hinerangi. Ultimately, we’re all only here for a short time and we want to leave the land better than we found it,” Schoonderwoerd said.

At the event to launch the partnership, Wairere Mahi kaimahi Wiremu Johnstone said he was “honoured”.

“My cup is full. I hope to do this for my whole life.”

Saunders said more than 30 iwi had interests in the Kaimai-Mamaku area, making it “one of the most diverse” in that way.

Saunders said the partnership had allowed tangata whenua to work on their land, enhancing the quality of conservation work carried out.

In the past three years, more than 18,787 pests have been removed from the Kaimai-Mamaku area. Photo / Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust

In the three years to June, the Kaimai restoration project had installed 6064ha of pest control infrastructure and removed more than 18,787 predators through trapping as part of co-funded iwi-hapū projects.

Saunders said she was aware consumers expected businesses to take responsibility for their carbon emissions and creating the online investment platform was a response to this.

“A really high proportion of New Zealanders don’t believe businesses are doing enough when it comes to conservation protection,” Saunders said.

In the past, businesses looking to invest in conservation mostly had a “direct relationship with a project that they know about”, Saunders said.

“If the business community wants to make a contribution, the difficulty is they don’t know which projects to trust – they’re not subject-matter experts [who] know what has impact and what doesn’t.”

This is where the investment platform could prove its value, she said.

“[Investing businesses] want to have a local connection because that’s what their consumers and stakeholders want.”

Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust chief executive Louise Saunders and Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust patron Pa Ropata. Photo / Adrienne Pitts

Saunders said she was raised on a dairy farm beside the Waihou River and Thompson’s Track in Manawarū, “under the Kaimai Range”.

“I’ve spent most of my life right on the Kaimais,” she said.

A consulting ecologist for 25 years before becoming chief executive of the trust, Saunders said conservation was a great space in which to “take two world views and find the commonalities between them”.

“It’s the community who see the issue and demand action,” she said.

Aleyna Martinez is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. She moved to the region in 2024 and has previously reported in Wairarapa and at Pacific Media Network.