March 2026 project update

We have experienced a bit of March Madness with an outstanding start to the academic year. Sheryl Blythen, our Chairperson, has outlined what this has meant for our ability to deliver significant youth-led results for regenerating nature in the Strengthening our impact through research story in our news section.

The level of youth-led activation is astounding with more than 280 students out in nature delivering in excess of 500 conservation and climate adaptation hours this month. The idea that young people, with support from iwi, teachers, Auckland Council, local business and ecology experts, are enabling a new forest to grow in the city is mind-blowing.

The number of young people investing in the project is on the cusp of escalating with capstone and internship students from Auckland University of Technology Environmental Science, ReGen AUT academics, the Faculty of Design capstone students and Computer Science and Engineering students from the University of Auckland, Accounting students from Massey University and students managing mixed abilities from Takapuna Grammar School all offering unique knowledge and skills about to begin supporting the regeneration of our people, place and organisations in the Albany Basin.

We warmly welcome Anna Wang to the operations team as a Working Bee Coordinator. Anna brings a love of birds, conservation, economic and environmental management skills to our place. Her passion for improving environmental health is exuberant and abundant.  We look forward to supporting her as she joins Thomas, Elouise, Miriam, Matt, Oisin and Ceinwen as they create amazing opportunities for local people and businesses to invest in regenerating biodiversity and delivering positive climate action.

We also welcome AUT capstone student Prakriti Vashishtha to the project. Prakriti has decided to focus on supporting mapping pest plants across the restoration during her time with us. This enables us to use the pest plant management units that were created by the team last year and populate them with where pest plants are currently situated. From that point we will use pest plant teams to mitigate and record pest plant removals on a data platform. Ongoing monitoring will help us to become more successful with pest plant management, an important process given the risks we manage not using herbicides. Interestingly, biocontrols in this space are growing. Louis shared Australian research that is underway with inoculating pest trees with fungi to kill the pest tree bioorganically. We will continue to learn new efficacious and evidenced-based regenerative ways to manage pest species at Te Hōnonga a Iwi.

Each action we take is a form of advocacy for Te Taiao, for local business resilience, and for young people and their future. We presented our request to maintain and increase investment into environmental health at an Upper Harbour Local Board and Auckland Council Governing Body hearings last week. We discussed the business case for continued or increased investment in regenerating nature, and the cascade of positive benefits for people, including iwi and communities, the commercial sector, and the planet's ecosystems. We raised the point that Te Taiao, people and the economy are not competing priorities; rather we are nature and we are co-dependent on each other. The climate crisis places escalating pressure on Papatūānuku and this will be especially keenly felt in Aotearoa given we have the most endemic species at risk of extinction in the world and exposure to the ocean that surrounds us and is in close proximity to nature, our people and places.

Not investing in the restoration of natural health is known to cause significant and amplified harm to the economy, to people, and to nature itself.

Download the full report for March 2026.