Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust wins Green Ribbon award

A community’s love and action to protect its special location has seen the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust’s ‘Wildside’ project named the winner of the 2017 Green Ribbon Award in Community Leadership.

Presented at a Parliamentary function co-hosted by Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith and Conservation Minister Maggie Barry, the award recognises the work performed by an entire community over a couple of decades.

Maree Burnett, general manager of the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust, says the award is national recognition for the trust and a testament to the efforts of the dedicated Wildside community and landowners.

“It is recognition of our collective efforts to protect and preserve our unique Banks Peninsula environment.”

Marie Haley, co-ordinator for Wildside says the award “recognises not leadership of a community, but a community of leaders.”

“We are extremely proud of the years of hard work that have been recognised in this prize and our role as such a forward thinking and acting community that is far ahead in terms of species protection, protecting private forest habitat, predator control, and now, importantly, freshwater protection,” she said.

Wildside originated 25 years ago when a Banks Peninsula farmer set out to protect the little blue penguins on his farm and has since grown to envelop the whole community in protecting the area’s special environment.

In 2001 the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust was formed with the legal ability to covenant private land and manage its own conservation projects. In 2010 a coordinator was employed to bring the trust’s many efforts into one cohesive project – and Wildside was born.

The project has seen more than 700 predator traps set over 7000 hectares, enabling a dramatic turnaround in sea bird species in the area. It has also achieved protection of a whole stream through private farmland from the summit to the sea. A second stream is now being targeted. Today around 25 per cent of the area has been protected through covenants and reserves, allowing the forest to regenerate. Its Hinewai reserve covering 1570 hectares, is the largest private reserve in New Zealand.

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