Our Global Conservation Manager Darren Peters has had a front-row seat to this biodiversity boom, so we sat down for a yarn about why mother nature is thriving in Wellington.

"When they built that big fence at Zealandia there were six breeding pairs of tūī left in Wellington. There was nothing, absolutely nothing here. Now Wellington now has the largest kākā population on the mainland, and 80-95% kākā chick survivorship. We’ve got one of our most critically endangered species - tīeke - breeding on the mainland outside of fenced nature reserved - it’s all unheard of in the middle of nowhere, let alone in a city."

"Growing up hunting in the back blocks through the 70s and 80s you were lucky to even see a native New Zealand falcon / kārearea in the back blocks, and now we’ve got so many kārearea hunting throughout Wellington city that we can see them just by looking out the Goodnature windows."

"This biodiversity hasn’t happened because of some kind of big government project. It’s been because of community conservation projects - massive ones like Capital Kiwi and Zealandia, and smaller grassroots ones like Polhill Protectors. They all understood the same thing - birds in people’s backyards is what sparks social change. It speeds up our understanding of our natural environment, our connection to whenua, our connection to conservation, our connection to helping our planet. And the faster we can speed up that social change, the faster we can help the planet."

"Zealandia has brought about rapid social change in Wellingtonians. Fenced nature reserves have a whole bunch of pluses and minuses, but the thing they bring the most to conservation is really rapid social change, especially when you put one right in the heart of a city like they have."

"It gave a whole bunch of endangered birds a predator-free place to breed, once they were able to breed they started to spill out beyond the fence, and almost straight away people began to see biodiversity in their backyards. I had seven kākā in my backyard yesterday, no one else in New Zealand is seeing something like that. Even on Stewart Island, one of the wildest parts of this country you’ll have a few birds floating around but you won’t have seven kākā in your backyard."

"Same goes for Capital Kiwi - rather than hiding those birds away on some remote island, their 500 year plan is to put kiwi into the backyards of Kiwis. And the moment people hear kiwi calling in their backyards it’ll spark massive social change for conservation in New Zealand."

"I see Goodnature having a big role in this kind of conservation work in the future, as people’s consciousness changes around using toxins for pest control. Right now people want birds in their backyards, but pretty soon people will start to realise they want birds in their backyards, but they don’t want those buckets of poison in their backyards that are currently making it possible. That change is coming, and when it does we’ll be that perfect toxin-free alternative.

Credit: Tui image shot by Rowan Nicholson.