Field Advisors aiming for even greater erosion management

Kaipara Moana Remediation’s team of dedicated Field Advisors are looking forward to further strong progress in 2025 following a review of their substantial achievements in 2024 – including overseeing the planting of well over 700,000 natives last winter alone.

Kaipara Moana Remediation’s Catchment Remediation Manager Lisette Rawson says there are now over 20 KMR Field Advisors working with hundreds of landowners and groups right across the Kaipara Moana catchment.

“KMR’s Field Advisors have been trained to design projects that deliver the best environmental outcomes.  They work closely with our many landowners and groups to identify priorities for reducing erosion and sediment losses into waterways,” says Lisette.

“KMR is also continuing to back a pool of professionals that provide expert services to KMR projects. We have accredited over 50 local businesses to ensure that projects are successfully delivered.

“Our Field Advisors draw on scientific information and use smart digital tools to look at the landscape risks and opportunities and then walk the land with the landowner or group to discuss restoration priorities.”

KMR’s larger planting projects in 2024 involved over 25,000 trees, with almost 20% of KMR projects planting between 10,000 and 20,000 natives. KMR still welcomes smaller projects, particularly where they can make a real difference to on-farm biodiversity once stock are excluded. Many of KMR’s planting projects involve around 2,500 stems per project.

KMR Pou Tātaki Justine Daw says that every project funded makes a difference.

“Our investment in projects to restore wetlands, fence off rivers and streams, plant trees and regenerate forest on erosion-prone land bring wider benefits,” says Justine.

“These include helping valued species to thrive, reducing climate change risks and increasing resilience to storms and other extreme weather.”

Justine says that as the year begins KMR is celebrating the role of Field Advisors and their contribution to KMR’s success.

“Their work has been pivotal to KMR being nominated for the globally prestigious 2025 Earthshot Prize.”

The Earthshot Prize an initiative inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s ‘Moonshot’ challenge in 1962 which aimed to land a man on the moon within a decade. Launched by Prince William in 2020, the Earthshot Prize aims to search for and scale the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges.

The ten-year global initiative aims to identify and support programmes and initiatives that can accelerate and scale the environmental innovations needed to repair and regenerate our planet across five categories.

Every year, the winners with the best chance of helping achieve the identified ‘Earthshots’ are awarded significant funding to scale their solutions, with all finalists receiving tailored support from a global alliance of partners.

Justine says on-the-ground advice and guidance from the KMR’s Field Advisors over the past three years has been key to ensuring that KMR projects are delivered successfully, and that landowners and groups have the knowledge they need to take action right away.

“Our experts co-design your project with you, targeting ‘hotspots’ in the landscape. Through the project, KMR specialists collaborate with you to ensure your project achieves the best environmental outcomes on the ground.”

KMR is also a strong supporter of Tūhono Taiao, a national digital platform created for environmental projects and programmes to share their resources.

“Through the platform, we have made available many of our underpinning documents (such as KMR’s popular Planting Guide) and other information of value to communities, landowners and groups taking environmental action across New Zealand,” says Justine.

“If you are outside the Kaipara Moana catchment, KMR freely shares our resources, in line with our role as a national exemplar for best practice in environmental restoration.”

The significance of KMR’s positive impact on the environment – in partnership with farmers, professionals, experts and more – is making a visible and positive difference in the Kaipara Moana catchment.

Taupaki’s Shona Oliver says that as a KMR Field Advisor she is privileged to work with people in the Auckland region who want to protect Kaipara Moana and the soils, eroding hillsides, waterways and wetlands that flow into it.

“Sediment reduction is key, stabilising the whenua, excluding stock, reducing run-off, removing weeds and providing filtration through riparian margins along our waterways.  All these actions help protect and restore the Kaipara Moana,” says Shona.

“It is uplifting, knowing we are all helping the restoration of land, waterways and ultimately the harbour. I have an overwhelming sense of privilege when people share their special slice of paradise with me and, together, we work out how we can restore it and make it more resilient into the future.

“The key to restoring the health and mauri of the Kaipara Moana is respect for the land, respect for the people who came before, those doing their best now and for those we will leave it for.

“The KMR kaupapa is about looking and listening to what the environment around us is saying, what’s there, what’s not there but should be, what could be there in the future if we give it a hand.

“If you are in the Kaipara Moana catchment, the best support you will ever get to achieve land restoration, protection of waterways and coastal margins (both financial and practical) is by partnering with KMR. A healthy thriving Kaipara Moana is what we all need.”

Shona has no doubt 2025 will be another highly productive and successful year for KMR’s Field Advisors and everyone they collaborate with.