NEW TEACHER FOR SANCTUARY

A new full time teacher, Shine Kelly, has been appointed through funding from NMIT and the Cawthron Institute Trust Board. She was raised in the Nelson area and graduated from the University of Otago with a degree in physical anthropology. Shine, also a primary teacher, has spent most of her teaching career in Timaru and has recently returned to Nelson following a year’s stint at Karori Normal School in Wellington where she spent much of her recreational time enjoying the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.
In her year long position, Shine will be creating an educational strategy for the sanctuary, designing an environmental sustainability course, to be taught at NMIT, and looks forward to working with Top of the South educators to create educational programmes encouraging schools into our wonderful outdoors classroom!

NELSON CITY COUNCIL SUPPORTS $1 MILLION FUNDING REQUEST BASEDON STRONG COMMUNITY SUPPORT

What does this mean? Well the cheque is not yet in the post! We requested $1 million in funding as four annual contributions of $250,000 beginning from 2008/09 onwards. This was to give us a year to complete some key processes, particularly obtaining resource consent for the fence.

So with your tremendous help we have got the result we were looking for. Over the next year we will be working hard on the resource consent – bringing Alastair Wiffen on to the team, as the project manager for the fence, and using the Council’s potential $1 million to persuade other partners to join us to secure all the funds needed.

NEW PROJECT COORDINATOR

A new full time project coordinator Rick Field has been appointed and is getting stuck into the role. Rick was born in Nelson and graduated from the University of Canterbury with a zoology degree. He and his wife Danella, recently returned to New Zealand, to have their fist child Thomas, after six years overseas. Rick worked in Washington DC at the Smithsonian Institution and for Apple Computers Inc. in London. The Trust is delighted at Rick’s appointment and was somewhat humbled by the strong field of talented folk who applied.

Project Coordinator Rick Field
with his wife Danella and son Thomas in front of the entrance building

NEW PROJECT MANAGER FOR FENCE

We have just secured the services of Alastair Wiffen (Wiff), known to some of you as the builder who coordinated the completion of our entrance building, to advance the Pest-proof Fence Project. He has
been contracted with funds from the Canterbury Community Trust to get everything ready for the building of our fence, particularly preparing the resource consent and coordinating all the detailed research needed for this, organising public consultations, selecting the fencing contractor and working with local companies to obtain their support. It is envisaged that this should take about one year.

RARE RED CROWNED PARAKEETS PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE BROOK

A pair of red crowned parakeet (kakariki) have been photographed on two separate occasions in the Brook. The red-crowned is considered almost gone from the South Island mainland and our chairperson has only seen one in 20 years of studying birds there. Nelson has been listed as one of three sites (with the Catlins and South Westland) where it was thought still to occur, and finding it on the ground is no surprise as this habit is considered one reason why it is so rare, making it more vulnerable to predators. The stoat trapping that has started in the sanctuary should benefit this bird and the others that we hope are with it. But another pest is now coming into the spotlight. Possum sign is frequently found in the site and damage to the vegetation significant so we are soon to begin a trapping programme.

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