An international bid to raise $137 million to re-wild some of New Zealand’s largest islands comes with news of a $100,000 donation for a subantarctic island pest project.
On Friday, the Department of Conservation announced New Zealand was joining the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge to raise money for predator-eradication work on the subantarctic Maukahuka/Auckland Island, Rakiura/Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands.
The IOCC – launched in 2022 by founding partners Island Conservation, Re:wild, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego – is a global initiative to restore and re-wild 40 island-ocean ecosystems by 2030.
Because of the scale and complexity of the Auckland Island project, it’ll take eight years and $78m to remove all pigs, cats and mice. It’s been described as the “last piece of the puzzle” for a pest-free subantarctics.
“We’re thrilled that just last month a generous New Zealander donated $100,000 to the Auckland Island project, adding to the $11.5m already raised through philanthropy across the three projects,” DoC director-general Penny Nelson said in a statement.
The $100,000 donation was prompted by a Newsroom story published in January, mirroring a situation that occurred in 2022.
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