Don (Bush) Macky and Clare St Pierre
Those involved in developing an ecological corridor linking Maungatautari to Mt Pirongia are renewing efforts to extend the project from its initial five-year timeline into the future.
Pictured at the annual meeting of Maungatautari to Pirongia Ecological Corridor Incorporated Society are, members Graham Parker, Bexie Towle, Te Ao Apaapa, Clare St Pierre, Don (Bush) Macky and Nardene Berry. Photo: Viv Posselt
The Taiea te Taiao Ecological Corridor project launched in late 2021 under the charitable trust Maungatautari to Pirongia Ecological Corridor Incorporated Society (MtPec). It is aimed at linking the two maunga via a 45km ecological corridor by increasing biodiversity, restoring cultural sites of significance, enhancing native species, strengthening weed and pest control, and improving water quality along its two primary waterways – the Mangapiko and Ngāparierua streams – and other waterways and wetlands.
Funding for the project has come mainly from the Ministry for the Environment’s Freshwater Improvement Fund.
“That was a one-off grant of $800,000 over five years, some of which was in-kind, but that runs out in June 2026,” MtPec chairperson Clare St Pierre said.
Now St Pierre and trust co-founder, Don (Bush) Macky, are keen to secure the project financially beyond next year. They have applied through an online fundraising site.
St Pierre hopes it will add momentum to fundraising efforts. “We think we need about $230,000 a year to keep going beyond that first tranche of funding.”
We’re not expecting it all to come from the payroll giving platform, but every dollar coming in will add up and get us there.”
Macky, a long-standing landowner who founded the Lower Mangapiko Streamcare Group, has founded a donations movement within the project and has given $10,000 through his family trust.
“We are in effect creating a joint venture between Taiea te Taiao and us, the landowners, who are the beneficiaries of the increased value of our asset. I have already seen a significant difference on my property in terms of the environment and have lost nothing by retiring parts of it. We need to support this project … it is essentially a generational task of rewilding our landscape.”
Taiea te Taiao’s 45km corridor takes in roughly 8200 properties, and since it started, more than 300,000 native trees have been planted and maintained, 22km of fencing has been erected to protect waterways and native trees, over 31 hectares of land retired, and over 1300 predator traps installed on private land.
Don (Bush) Macky and Clare St Pierre.
