Purpose & People: 20 Years of Environmental Advocacy for Aotea

KATE WATERHOUSE (Chair of Aotea Great Barrier Environmental Trust)

A little over twenty years ago, on the 11th of November 2002, the Great Barrier Island Charitable Trust was established. The founding trustees were Windy Hill’s Judy Gilbert, Glenfern’s Tony Bouzaid, ecologist John Ogden and Okiwi’s original David Speir. It is now the Aotea Great Barrier Environmental Trust. The purpose is the same, but the people and the process have changed. 

In 2012, after ten years of “running the gauntlet’ of opposition to eradication through the use of traditional aerial methods, there was a change in direction. The trust actively moved away from “how” eradication might be achieved and began to focus on what was so special about Aotea and why those birds, reptiles and ecosystems should be protected. There was also much more focus on “who” – the community, iwi and stakeholders within Auckland Council, the Department of Conservation and the funders of conservation. 

Reflecting on the 20-year life of this trust, Judy Gilbert takes a breath. She is out and out a national treasure, receiving a Queen’s Service Medal for Conservation in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2017. She is a member of the Sanctuaries New Zealand board and served for three years on the Aotea Great Barrier Local Board from 2013-2016, and now she is a member of the Technical Advisory Group for Tū Mai Taonga. There is, quite simply, no-one in the world more attuned to the behaviour and control of ship rats and kiore in the forest ecology of Aotea, or anywhere for that matter. She has run Windy Hill Sanctuary for 22 years, employing dozens of islanders and shared her learning with everyone in the conservation community. Judy has a relentless focus on measurement and understands what works and doesn’t work, borne out of two decades of experience on how to make the funding dollar go as far as it possibly can. 

I ask her to reflect on the last 20 years and the first thing she says is that she’s surprised that our original vision is still so far in front of us. “Over all the years that we have done the pest management work here, there are no better tools that are affordable that make significant difference to pest management than when I started. A person on the ground with rat traps and bait. We have not yet got an improvement, despite the enormous investment.” We agree we’re both looking forward to some results from that investment in the next few years to remove rats over landscape scale in habitat like Aotea’s. 

Judy notes one of the big pluses over time is how korero from the trust and the sanctuaries has helped, and the big shifts in community attitudes and expectations. “We have more trapping and baiting happening than ever and we are seeing an increase in birds even though the area (being managed) is relatively tiny – that’s very cool.” We believe no community in New Zealand is doing more than Aotea to manage pests. 

Looking ahead Judy says: “The key is private land - if it doesn’t disturb people’s sense of privacy and doesn’t cost them much they’re happy to have the work done – but they haven’t had skin in the game.” There’s no doubt landowners are key to the next phase as we move towards a predator free Aotea. In particular they are key to the long term funding of control and eradication and what people consider is “an ok amount to contribute to that— because it can’t depend on the ability of a few committed individuals to get public funding.” 

Of the trust in the last ten years Judy says: “It’s been fantastic … the quality of the newsletters, commitment to the projects and the backing from funders – it has been really solid. We have not really waivered in those 20 years, even through Rakitū, there is a real belief and faith that we can lift quality of this motu to where it should be.” 

When iwi and DOC proposed the eradication of rats from Rakitū, the trust publicly backed the plan and actively shared the facts about the methods and outcomes with the community. Rakitū is a seabird island – like the Mokohinaus, Cuvier and the Mercury group, each of which are home to between 5 and 7 species of burrowing seabirds, and it is of great significance to Ngāti Rehua people. It was a difficult time because conversations were being driven by fear and a lack of information, and divisions were created which have taken years to mend. The operation was completed and Rakitū is slowly recovering from 160 years of ecological damage from the largest and most dense population of ship rats ever recorded by the University of Auckland’s pre-eradication monitoring team(1). 

Relationships between the community, agencies, iwi and conservation groups were shaken, and needed to be rebuilt. So the trust took on the role of facilitating this, and the Aotea Conservation Workshops, the Aotea Trap Library and the Aotea Bird Count were the results of this process. Fast forward 5 years and Aotea has more households trapping rats than any other community in the country. 

In those five years as Chair of this trust, I’ve observed a dramatic increase in momentum and support for conservation. We’re not alone– all over Aotearoa the Predator Free concept has gained support and we see iwi leading the restoration in their rohe. It is so good to see this happening here on Aotea with the establishment of Tū Mai Taonga, under the leadership of Opo Ngawaka, of Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea. It has been a long road but the way ahead is clear. 

The reasons are more compelling now than ever as out climate warms, and people appreciate our connection and obligation to nature. On Aotea, the feeling never leaves you – petrels calling overhead as they come in from the sea at night, schools of fish glistening, the pipis in your bucket, the pāteke fossicking in the paddocks at night, and if you’re old enough, a memory of kōkako calling in a valley clustered with rātā and rimu. 

Judy Gilbert is conscious of the need for a changing of the guard, for new people to take up the baton. Many of those who started the journey are no longer with us, or are unable to contribute as they once did. But she notes the growth of iwi involvement and of new groups – in Oruawharo Medlands, Okiwi, Cecilia Sudden Bay, Okupu and Schooner Bay; and the amount of community engagement in projects like the annual Aotea Bird Count. “But maintaining the advocacy for the whole island to be pest free is crucial,” she says. “And the State of Environment Report for Aotea, and Birds of Aotea— there isn’t another community conservation group that’s done that – it’s powerful to have that data.” 

Birds of Aotea will be launched on 11th February 2023 and is a comprehensive survey of the birdlife of our islands, by our Science Advisor, John Ogden. John was founding chair of this trust and has spent his life observing and recording nature, specifically, in this case, the birds of Aotea. He describes some of his insights in his guest editorial of this 20th anniversary newsletter. Ten years ago, in the 10th anniversary edition, he graphically spelt out the more than 80,000 birds “slaughtered” each year on Aotea by an estimated quarter of a million rats and a thousand feral cats. While we’re still grappling with that reality ten years on, most people are now on board with the vision. And it has broadened, beyond birds – to encompass the forests, freshwater, estuarine and marine ecosystems of Aotea; the connected whole. Ki uta ki tai. 

There have been other learnings too. For example it's clear, in 2023, that conversations about the future start on the island and will be led from the island. We are the ones who need to come up with the solutions to environmental problems, with the support of agencies and under the guiding vision of Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea as mana whenua. 

We’ve learned that facts are key. Conversations, and eventually decisions, need to be informed by a fact base, which is shared widely and openly debated. Mātauranga adds to this science base, informed by intergenerational knowledge of Aotea as a connected system. 

And it’s becoming clear that we all want the same thing. Regardless of background, the community holds very similar values in relation to the environment of the island. There is broad support for the end goal – a return to abundance and a desire to care for nature so that our children’s children may benefit. In times of challenge, returning to these shared values can resolve issues and support progress to be made. 

Everyone plays a part. So whether you, fence, plant, weed, trap, hunt, monitor, count birds, share knowledge or volunteer your time in other ways, it is a contribution to the future of this island and a statement about what is important. 

Above all, Aotea needs advocates. The island is over the horizon –out of sight, out of mind and we quite like it that way. But conservation costs, and when competition for funding is tight, a lack of public awareness of the Aotea’s taonga species and ecosystems, or worse, an erroneous perception in parts of government that the community is not supportive, could limit investment here, just when momentum is greater than it has ever been. That is why this trust will continue to raise understanding of the national significance of Aotea’s biodiversity and ecosystems, for as long as is necessary to protect them. 

The last word. I’d like to leave it to Izzy Fordham, who began her fifth term as a member of the Aotea Great Barrier Local Board, in November 2022, much of that as the Chair. Izzy is an inspiration to the island in so many ways. She had this to say to editor Barry Scott about the trust on our 20th birthday. 

“As an organization, the trust have worked tirelessly to ensure there is a voice that wasn’t previously present to encourage us all as a community to pay attention to what we have, what we have lost and what needs our help to protect our special place against threats. 

It’s been a pleasure to see this trust develop over the years to become one of Aotea’s mainstay environmental groups and an appropriate quote from their website that I feel sums them up: If not us, then who? If not now, then when? All the very best for the next 20 years.” 

Thank you to all past and current trustees, coordinators, contractors, members, funders, partners and friends, on this, our 20th anniversary. 

For a full chronology of major activities/events of AGBET over the last 20 years, look here. 

To volunteer or donate, email: contact.gbiet@gmail.com

A big thank you to our major funders: Auckland Council, Aotea Great Barrier Local Board, Foundation North, DOC, Lotteries Commission and Natural Habitats. 

References:

1. Russell J (2018). Ratting on Rakitu. Unpublished Report, February 2, 2018. https://aucklandecology.com/2018/02/02/ratting-on-rakitu/