Stories from Our Changing World

On Our Changing World, Claire Concannon heads to Waikereru Ecosanctuary, a privately owned conservation project on the lands of Professor Dame Anne Salmond. New Zealander of the year in 2013, she's most widely known for her writings and work as a Professor of Maori studies at the University of Auckland. But when she and her husband bought land a couple of kilometres outside Gisborne twenty-five years ago, it was the start of their conservation journey. Today the ecosanctuary encompasses an education space for school groups, a harakeke collection, a living library of rare local plants called the 1769 seed archive, a small patch of bush open to the public called Longbush Reserve and one hundred hectares of steep-sided hills. When they first bought the land, these hills were bare. Dame Anne Salmond explains to Claire Concannon how they've gone about revegetating them, including recruiting the local manu to help.