How a trust fund helps farmers protect biodiversity

The Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust (BPCT) is implementing a biodiversity monitoring programme on agricultural lands that began in 2023. In the same year, the trust itself marks a quarter of a century of its conservation activities. Trust specialists use quadcopters to survey the hilly terrain, which makes the work easier compared to walking surveys. One staff member operates the drone, while a colleague monitors flight safety with binoculars.

Aerial imagery is supplemented by ground surveys and eDNA tests. Specialists then analyze the collected biodiversity data and share this information with landowners. This approach is already being applied, in particular, at the large sheep and beef farming enterprise of farmer Timo Koop in Port Levy, which preserves remnants of native flora and rare giant totara trees.

In addition to private farms, the trust conducts surveys in public areas. For example, shortly before the severe flooding in mid-February, BPCT surveyed a 500-hectare site dedicated to a public park and ecological restoration project managed by Sarah Anderson from the Te Ahu Patiki charitable trust. The soil damage caused by the natural disaster provided an opportunity to document the natural regeneration process of the local vegetation from "zero", and regular re-mapping will make it possible to record the changes taking place.

Trust staff note that the success of their work is achieved through a partnership approach to conservation on farms, where the experience of researchers is combined with the knowledge and understanding of the land possessed by the locals themselves.