Farmer engagement is helping to bring back whio and kiwi to a pocket of the East Coast of the North Island, where local extinction of these species was a very real possibility only a few years ago. Words Rebecca Greaves.

The Eastern Whio Link (EWL) is a project aimed at increasing biodiversity across 30,000 hectares of public conservation land and farmland between Ōpōtiki and Gisborne, with a specific goal of lifting whio (blue duck) and kiwi numbers. The community project is co-chaired by Sustainable Business Network Programme Manager for Nature, Sam Rowland, and NZ Landcare Trust East Coast Catchment Coordinator, Sam Gibson, aka Sam the Trap Man.

Rowland says the model is to link the private sector and community with projects, like this one, and farmers who wish to leave a lasting legacy. ‘The Eastern Whio Link has funding from Westpac to support our work. It means we can do the trapping on farm.’

In late 2022, EWL received the first $10,000 grant through the Westpac Water Care Project, part of the partnership between NZ Landcare Trust and Westpac New Zealand, which was used to fund predator trap maintenance to help increase the whio population.

Sam Gibson says it’s important to have community engaging with biodiversity and increasing biodiversity on farm, as well as conservation land. ‘In a farming business situation everyone is cash poor and time poor. Over 50 per cent of our land in Aotearoa is held as farmland. We have all this high-value biodiversity on farm and the role EWL plays is to plug the gaps.’ The project has over 100 active volunteers and works to deliver biodiversity work on farm and on private conservation land, filling the time and cash deficit.

When the project began in 2020 there were just four recorded pairs of whio left in the rivers flowing through the farmland, and it was rare to hear the call of the kiwi.

The first step was to undertake a large landscape monitoring exercise to see exactly how many birds were left. They then established over 1,000 traps over the 30,000 hectares. The discovered kiwi were in pockets of remnant bush on farm, which made it easy to target those areas.

Funding enabled them to purchase quad bikes and side-by-sides and employ a project manager and two trappers. The farmers allow them to shoot deer on farm to be used as bait, and provide their shearers’ quarters as accommodation for the trappers. While the trappers sit under the EWL umbrella, the added benefit is that they have become part of the social fabric of the farms.

Since its inception, EWL has fledged over 100 whio, and the call of the kiwi is no longer a rarity.

When the project began in 2020 there were just four recorded pairs of whio left in the rivers flowing through the farmland, and it was rare to hear the call of the kiwi.

Gibson believes there is a perceived disconnect between farmers and conservation, but the EWL project puts farmers in the wheelhouse when it comes to conservation on their land, giving them meaningful input into what it involves and how it looks. ‘Projects like this, being farmer- and hunter-led, really allows a community approach and that’s the future of biodiversity on farms – allowing our communities to do conservation in a way that’s authentic to them.’

Stu Jefferis, owner of Journeys End Station at Matawai, is one of the landowners involved in EWL. He believes it’s important that farmers show the community, and the world, that farming systems work, and that they are environmentally aware of their surroundings. ‘[We are] not just taking from the land and not giving back. It gives us a real kick to hear the birdsong, and to see them, and see the stock in the background. It’s pretty cool to have nature at its best and farming at its best right on our doorstep.’