Sustaining the Heart of Our Mahi

We’re thrilled to share that Project Tongariro has secured vital multi-year funding to support the people who make our conservation work possible. Together, these partnerships strengthen the backbone of our organisation - the staff who coordinate, connect, and inspire community conservation across the Central Plateau and beyond.

Waikato Regional Council’s Natural Heritage Fund is supporting our core mission work, recognising the need to sustain the leadership and coordination that keep restoration projects thriving. Taupō District Council, a long-time supporter of our mahi, continues its valued partnership through three years of strategic funding for the Greening Taupō Coordinator role, along with an important contribution towards Kids Greening Taupō administration.

We are very grateful for Contact Energys ongoing support, with regular sponsorship towards KGT programme costs.

The Ministry of Education has also extended funding for the Kids Greening Taupō Educator for another year, a wonderful endorsement of the value our environmental education model brings to schools and kura. Contact Energy has once again sponsored Kids Greening Taupō for another year, and a one-off grant from Grassroots Trust Central is helping our educators continue to provide hands-on environmental learning experiences for tamariki.

In the Southern Ruapehu region, the Whanganui/Manawatū Community Lottery Fund has contributed to staff costs for our Waimarino Restoration Programme for one year, an environmental education initiative that connects schools to local restoration projects or supports them to continue their own mahi in their communities.

Together with our renewed three-year Core Mission support from BayTrust (our largest funder for salaries) this network of funders makes it possible for us to connect and collaborate with others, especially with hapū, DOC, councils, schools, kura, and the business community.

Each year, this collaborative model engages more than 12,000 volunteers, contributes over 48,000 volunteer hours, involves 50+ schools and kura, and enables the planting of around 50,000 native trees. Through Predator Free Taupō, Predator Free Ohakune and our Mt Pihanga–Lake Rotopounamu Restoration Project, over 2,300 traps are maintained, removing around 9,000 pests annually.

Importantly, these salary contributions mean that the communities, kura, and partners we work alongside are not charged for the support, services, and experiences we provide. This keeps environmental education, volunteering, and community restoration accessible to everyone, regardless of resources.

While we’re deeply grateful for these significant contributions, we’re still on the “mouse wheel” of securing enough funding to keep the lights on, this new support gets us about three-quarters of the way there. We often find ourselves competing with social services for funding, which can be disheartening and really underlines just how scarce resources have become. We continue to work hard to bring in the remaining funding needed to fully sustain our team and the mahi that so many communities rely on. Even so, with partners like these behind us, we’re more confident than ever in the difference we can make - together.