Trade Me Members to Help BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust

1 May 2012

Trade Me Members to Help BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust

A new partnership between Trade Me and conservation group BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust hopes to raise more than $40,000 a year to help save our national icon.

From today, Trade Me sellers can choose to “round up” their success fee to the nearest dollar and donate the difference to the Trust. Participating Trade Me listings will display the Trust’s logo.

BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust executive director, Michelle Impey says the Trade Me partnership is an outstanding opportunity to extend the Trust’s reach and offer people a really easy way to contribute to the efforts to save kiwi. “Our national icon needs our help. Funding is critical to ensure work such as predator control and BNZ Operation Nest Egg can continue.”

Ms Impey said a key goal was to increase the critically endangered rowi kiwi population on the South Island’s West Coast from just 357 kiwi to 600. “We are confident of reaching this milestone with the help of donations from the Trade Me community.”

Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said providing a way for Trade Me members to support the Trust was a good fit. “The great work that the Trust does with kiwi is exactly the sort of thing our members would expect Trade Me to be aligned with. The Trust is a quintessential New Zealand organisation and we’re stoked to be working alongside Michelle and the team.”

BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust was established in November 2002 by Bank of New Zealand, Forest & Bird and the Department of Conservation, building on a sponsorship relationship that started in 1991. BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust is responsible for public awareness and education, fundraising, sponsorship and grant allocations for kiwi recovery nationally. In 2011 alone, nearly $700,000 was allocated to community and DOC kiwi projects. More than $6 million has been granted for kiwi work in total. This money has come from BNZ, its staff, customers and supporters of BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust.

BNZ Operation Nest Egg is a powerful tool to reverse the decline of kiwi. It has successfully incubated, raised and returned more than 1600 kiwi back to the wild where they stand a 65 percent chance of reaching adulthood. Without the programme, only five percent of kiwi chicks reach adulthood. Twenty percent survival is needed for a population to grow. A century ago kiwi in the wild numbered in the millions. Now there are less than 100,000. The main reason for declining numbers of kiwi in the wild is the loss of chicks to predators such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, cats and dogs.

Trade Me (www.trademe.co.nz) is the place where Kiwis buy and sell. It is the leading online marketplace and classified business in New Zealand.

ENDS

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