As a New Zealand owned brand, a quintessential part of being a kiwi is enjoying our waterways and coastlines. Through the Leave Only Trails Fund we are proudly a Bronze sponsor for Sustainable Coastlines, a charity who enable kiwis to look after our water. They do this by hosting and providing tools for clean up events, restoring rivers through riparian planting and educating the next generation on the effects of littering. 

Through this partnership we are supporting their vision of beautiful beaches, healthy waters and inspired people, through three core programmes that directly involve communities in positive outcomes for the coastlines and waterways they love: Love Your Coast, Love Your Water and Litter Intelligence. Each program addresses the issue of rubbish in our waterways at different stages. This multi-pronged approach is why we back this organisation.

For every product sold with the Leave Only Trails Fund tag, you enable us to help Sustainable Coastlines to remove 3L of litter from New Zealand’s coastlines through their Love Your Coast programme. 

You might recognise this little guy from the New Zealand $10 note. As one of our rarest birds, the Whio, or Blue Duck, needs our help to continue surfing our white-water rivers. These unique birds are camouflaged for this unique environment and have a lip on their bill which allows them to forage for insects amongst rocks. As they need fresh water to be able to establish a home where their food thrives, they are a great indicator of the health of the water. 

There are two main threats that have affected the number of these birds in the wild. As good water quality is a high priority, the degradation of many of our rivers by silt and other pollutants has resulted in many rivers being unsuitable as habitat. We also cannot ignore the familiar story that before the introduction of pests like stoats, weasels, ferrets and rats the Whio thrived.

We support The Blue Duck Project in the central north island and the Mangaotane Whio Conservation Project in the southern Raukumara on the East Coast, north of Gisborne, in protecting their Whio residents. This involves controlling predators along the margins of the river, particularly during the nesting and fledging season, between August and January. We have donated several effective and easy maintenance A24 traps to these organisations. Through trapping, we can give the Blue ducks a chance to nest, raise their young and build up their numbers so we can see these in abundance on our rivers once again.