Did you know that QEII National Trust has over 8,500 members? This includes people who have covenants, financial members and lifetime members. One the goals that we have is to encourage our covenantors to make connections with not only our regional representatives, but also other covenantors in their area.

Recently, our regional representative for South Canterbury, Rob Smith, organised a get together for covenantors in the Waimate area. One thing they all had in common, other than protecting their little slice of biodiversity, was that they all had a wetland covenant.

The event was hosted jointly by Rob and QEII covenantor John Stevens and included a visit to John’s wetland covenant which he has been working hard over the years to restore as it is habitat for the critically endangered Canterbury mudfish. 26 attendees came from the local community and there were attendees from Fish and Game, Waitaki District Council and Environment Canterbury.

The discussions started off with a presentation from Kennedy Lange from Environment Canterbury, but the main objective and focus of the day was spent on and with the covenantors themselves. Attendees were split into groups and they were given the task of coming up with the best thing about their wetland and what their biggest management challenges are.

The workshopping discussions went well with covenantors feeding off each other for advice and expertise while having the support of QEII, as well as those attendees from Environment Canterbury and the Waitaki District Council.

A big thank you to Rob for organising a great day along with his helpful crew Donna, Robin, Jakki, Ina and Karen and of course, to the attendees for coming along and having such great discussions.

We’ll be working on creating more events in the future, if you have any ideas for an event or would like to host one at your covenant, get in touch with your regional representative.