Show Notes
Join environmental educator and facilitator Maureen Howard as she visits with local champions and enthusiasts in the movement to increase biodiversity by restoring natural processes and allowing nature to lead the way.
Learn about their hands-on work, and explore the thinking behind nature-led regeneration.
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More from Rewilding In Action
The focus of today’s episode is how to register your naturally regenerating native forest through the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme or ETS.
Exotic pasture grasses are often a major barrier to native forest species getting established naturally. In this episode I’ve come to Te Whenua Ora on Banks Peninsula to find out how sheep grazing can help kanuka (Kunzea ericoides) get established through exotic grass to kickstart the forest succession process. Te Whenua Ora is a 536 ha conservation project near Little River comprising pasture, damp south-facing gullies, original forest remnants and drier north-facing slopes.
I’m often amazed by natures' ability to recover by itself when given a chance. However with less than 1% native vegetation, the Canterbury Plains is a good candidate for some planting to kickstart natural native forest regeneration.
In New Zealand, introduced pigs even in low numbers have very destructive effects on our native bush and wildlife. In this episode (recorded in July 2026) I’ve come to Banks Peninsula to find out about the very recent elimination of over 3000 pigs from 22,000 hectares there – potentially NZ’s largest removal of a population that was established through illegal releases.
Most trees grow much better when they are able to associate with mycorrhizal fungi. Native beech in particular are unable to live without certain species of ectomycorrhizal fungi. Is it a job we are wise to leave to the processes of natural succession? In this episode of Rewilding in Action, my guests Professor David Orlovich, Associate Professor Matt Larcombe and Dr Andy Nilsen from Otago University’s botany department take me, Maureen Howard, on a mini-adventure in Bethunes Gully in Dunedin to find a small remnant of original tawhai silver beech, also known as Nothofagus menziesii.