New Zealand Nature Fund

New Zealand Nature Fund The NZ Nature Fund is an independent charitable trust enabling people to support conservation work that makes a real difference.

Formerly known as NZ National Parks and Conservation Foundation. Why New Zealand needs investors in conservation:

These islands have existed in splendid ocean isolation for more than 80 millions years. That’s a long time for the plants and animals on board to evolve, making New Zealand an Ark to animals, plants and habitats found nowhere else on Earth. In particular, New Zealand evolved into a land of ancient forests and birds. Some of those birds have taken on the role filled by mammals in most other parts of the world — moa were our deer, kiwi became our badgers, weka fossick like pigs, kōkako still run through forest branches like squirrels do in England. For the last several million years, our only land-based mammals have been tiny bats, one of which forages mouse-like on the ground. New Zealand is also one of the last places on Earth to be peopled, a mere 1000 years of human settlement. But our impact in that short time has been huge. We brought with us animals, which killed and destroyed native species, along with thousands of introduced plants now established as serious environmental weeds. Forests have been burnt and cleared for farms, wetlands drained and estuaries filled in. The outcome:

Today New Zealand boasts the disastrous tally of more than 2700 threatened species — one of the highest rates on Earth — and there are more than 3000 we know too little about to know whether they are also in trouble. Many species no longer survive on the mainland, and are found only on predator-free islands.

Enderby Island is coming back into growth. The megaherbs that cover the slopes above the sea lion colony, Pleurophyllum,...
10/10/2026

Enderby Island is coming back into growth. The megaherbs that cover the slopes above the sea lion colony, Pleurophyllum, Anisotome and Stilbocarpa, die back above ground through winter while their roots hold energy for the green that arrives with spring, and they came back in the first place only once grazing stock were removed.

Down at sea level, New Zealand sea lion pups spend the season in crèches, loose groups that keep each other company in the rātā scrub while their mothers are away foraging.

Those trips are long. Research from the early 2000s found females breeding in the Auckland Islands travel two to three times the distance their mainland counterparts cover to find enough food, in some of the most demanding ocean conditions anywhere, and their foraging grounds overlap with commercial squid and scampi fisheries.

Every safe hectare down there counts: https://ow.ly/Fo4050ZElSs

If you have found your way here through a friend's share or a news story, the fullest version of this work lands by emai...
09/10/2026

If you have found your way here through a friend's share or a news story, the fullest version of this work lands by email.

Our updates go out through the month with whatever the field teams have sent through: the pukunui count off Rakiura, the lead coming out of kea country, whether the rodents turned up in the Hawdon after the beech mast, and how far the Maukahuka readiness work has got.

If you have given to a project, it is also the best way to see where that money went after you made the decision. Sign up at https://ow.ly/oBzf50ZElRx

Five facts about our rarest birds that should keep you up at night:1. The tara iti fairy tern population (35 birds) coul...
08/10/2026

Five facts about our rarest birds that should keep you up at night:

1. The tara iti fairy tern population (35 birds) could fit in your living room with space for furniture. They're one dog attack away from extinction.

2. Black stilts were down to 23 birds in 1981. Now there are 200, proving recovery is possible but painfully slow.

3. Kākāpō can't fly but climb trees anyway. There are 252 of them, every one named, GPS-tracked, and health-checked annually. Conservation teams run a dating service for them. Not joking.

4. Orange-fronted parakeets look nearly identical to yellow-crowned ones. Scientists argued about whether they were separate species while their numbers crashed.

5. Shore plovers exist on exactly four predator-free islands. Total population: 250. They used to cover coastlines nationwide.

Fund the fighters → https://ow.ly/PY9Q50WPgtn

A fair question to ask any charity is where the money actually goes. Ours is straightforward. 100% of your donation goes...
06/10/2026

A fair question to ask any charity is where the money actually goes. Ours is straightforward. 100% of your donation goes directly to conservation work.

Our operational costs are covered by corporate partners including Chubb Life New Zealand. That works because we fund conservation.

The delivery is done by DOC, iwi, community groups and the field teams best placed to do it, which is how a small team can back projects far larger than itself. In practice it looks like a trap line serviced in Fiordland, a 65-camera grid on Rakiura, chicks reared at Auckland Zoo, and a boardwalk built at Smith Harbour on Auckland Island.

Give to the fund and we will put it where the need is sharpest, or pick a project and follow it for as long as you like: nznaturefund.org

In a mast year the beech forests seed heavily, the rodents that eat the seed multiply, and the birds nesting in those fo...
04/10/2026

In a mast year the beech forests seed heavily, the rodents that eat the seed multiply, and the birds nesting in those forests pay for it.

This year, in the Hawdon Valley and the South Branch Hurunui where kākāriki karaka hold on, the mast arrived and the rodent numbers that usually follow have not.

Zero rodents have been detected in the core Hawdon area, ten rats have been caught in the South Branch core against the several hundred a mast season would normally deliver by now, and around 20 feral cats have been removed across the two valleys since April.

Nobody is calling it won, because predator numbers can climb fast and the season has a way to run, though a start like this gives a nesting season somewhere to go.

This is what sustained control looks like when it works: https://ow.ly/tFEm50ZElR0

Down on Rakiura the pukunui have their breeding plumage back, and some have started the walk up to the tops. Ranger Rach...
02/10/2026

Down on Rakiura the pukunui have their breeding plumage back, and some have started the walk up to the tops.

Ranger Rachel came off a trapping stint at Freshwater and Rocky Mountain with photographs and a story.

Walking down from the traps she came across MRR and MRB, a pair known by their leg bands, metal red red and metal red blue, sitting on a boulder in the sun and entirely unbothered by the photo session.

They have not had much luck with their nests in past seasons, so this one is super cool to see. Behind that pair sits the count you helped fund, with DOC recording 160 pukunui in April, up from 105 the year before, the biggest annual rise in the 32 years of the recovery programme.

Holding that line through the breeding season takes trapping, bait stations and ranger hours: https://ow.ly/ryNn50ZElQs

It is not size that makes the shore plover remarkable, it's their utter persistence. For thousands of years they lived a...
29/09/2026

It is not size that makes the shore plover remarkable, it's their utter persistence. For thousands of years they lived and bred along our coasts. Now, unfortunately, fewer than 250 remain.

There's a lot we can do. We can breed chicks in captivity. We can keep them safe until they are strong enough to fly. What we cannot do, yet, is guarantee they have a safe wild home to return to.

That is where the next chapter of the story begins. It involves finding new release sites, removing predators, and fitting transmitters to track every movement. Very James Bond.

So, we think it's a pretty neat story and over the next month or two, we'll share the small but determined steps being taken to give these birds a future.

Four tonnes of lead have come out of kea country, and there is more to go. Old backcountry huts, mines and roofs carry l...
28/09/2026

Four tonnes of lead have come out of kea country, and there is more to go.

Old backcountry huts, mines and roofs carry lead flashings and lead-head nails, and a kea will chew anything soft and shiny, which makes lead one of the more insidious threats the species faces and one of the most fixable.

After blood-testing more than 800 birds alongside DOC and finding contamination right across the range, the Kea Conservation Trust has stripped the lead from over 500 South Island buildings.

Nature Fund manages the Trust's project fund, so a donation made through us goes straight into that work: https://ow.ly/Uaep50ZElQ3
NZ

It's a tricky one, but did you know that September is wills month. At the NZNF, it’s not something we deal with a lot. O...
26/09/2026

It's a tricky one, but did you know that September is wills month.

At the NZNF, it’s not something we deal with a lot. Our main focus is protecting and restoring our spectacular natural biodiversity, but we don’t sit down with Tanē the takahe to sort out his will.

Kiwis are a pretty clued up bunch. We work hard, and we want to make sure that anything we give to charity makes a real difference.

This month, we’re asking the question; have you ever thought about leaving a legacy to the environment you love?

Bequests to the NZ Nature Fund can make a world of difference to the world.

Lady Prue Wallis is known to many throughout the country. She's also on the NZNF board. While her and her family's invol...
26/09/2026

Lady Prue Wallis is known to many throughout the country. She's also on the NZNF board.

While her and her family's involvement in high-country farming and aviation are well known, Prue is also an avid supporter of the outdoors, of charities, and of the environment. We're lucky that the NZNF is one of her key organisations.

Sitting on the board, Prue knows the land, the flora and fauna, and is deeply entrenched in the regions where many of our projects operate.

Ka rawe Prue and thanks for your service. We're lucky to have you.

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