Reduced boat fares for Supporters
Date posted: 13-Apr-2012
From the 360 Discovery Team: 360 Discovery is pleased to be able to offer you a special offer on..
Stars of Tiritiri
Date posted: 22-Mar-2012
Join the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi and amateur astronomers on Saturday 28th April for a spe..
2012 Photo competition
Date posted: 16-Mar-2012
Yet again we are running our almost famous photo competition on the island so please get your ca..
Ornithology to play at Tiri Kokako Concert
Date posted: 07-Mar-2012
To celebrate our kokako and bring Kokako Week to a fitting climax, we have a great concert lined..
Art for kokako week
Date posted: 27-Feb-2012
Artwork for our Kokako Week event is now being delivered to the Island by our visiting artists a..
Kokako Celebration Week
Date posted: 03-Feb-2012
This year's 'Celebration Week species' is the kokako. Once again, we have the kokako-inspired wo..
Pied Shag - possible new breeding species
Date posted: 29-Dec-2011
Pied Shags are a common sight on Tiritiri Matangi, sometimes feeding on the seas around the Isla..
Kokako Update
Date posted: 23-Dec-2011
Congratulations to Te Koha Waiata and Cloudsley Shovel. After two unsuccessful seasons our found..
Wetapunga on Tiri
Date posted: 14-Dec-2011
The 10th December was a special day on the Island with the arrival of wetapunga on Tiri...
Kokako Update
Date posted: 23-Nov-2011
So far this season the kokako team have found the nests of three pairs: Cloudsley Shovel and TKW..
About
Tiritiri Matangi ('a place tossed by the wind') was settled by the Kawerau-A-Maki tribe. They built the pa Tiritiri Matangi, from which the island takes its name. Europeans arrived in the mid 1850s. The island was farmed continuously until the 1970s, when the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park Board was given responsibility for Tiritiri Matangi and the last of the stock removed. Now the Department of Conservation administers Tiritiri Matangi as a scientific reserve, protecting the island for its wildlife, conservation, scientific, recreational and historical values.
A Beacon of Conservation
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Tiritiri Matangi Island is the dream that came true. Thirty-five years ago the 220-hectare island was a big green paddock. The farming lease had expired, the island had been returned to the people as a recreation reserve, but natural regeneration faltered as rats, rank grasses and bracken took over.
Then a bold group of people conceived an imaginative plan – to replant the island’s original forest and create a sanctuary for endangered birds and reptiles. The sanctuary would also be open to all. Such ideas were, for their time, revolutionary – that the island, often affectionately known as ‘Tiri’, might become a symbol for conservation in action. That conservation might be uplifted here from the sole charge of scientists and professionals and carried forward by the citizens of Auckland. Thousands of volunteers responded, and replanted a forest.
Birds, including many endangered species, have repopulated that forest and people by the thousands now visit Tiritiri Matangi Island, the first of New Zealand’s open sanctuaries. In retrospect it is easy to say that the time for such a bold revolution was right. As with any good idea, it was simple, unexpected and credible – it caught people’s imagination, it offered a goal and an unfolding story. The lighthouse island that once housed the brightest light in the southern hemisphere has brightened again, but this time as a beacon of conservation in action.
Click on the link below to view the report. For a more detailed history, go to our History page >>.
Tiritiri Matangi awarded as 1 of the top 25 ecological restoration projects in Australasia
Tiritiri Matangi has been recognised as one of the top 25 ecological restoration projects in Australasia, as selected by a cross-Tasman panel set up by the journal Ecological Management & Restoration and the Ecological Society of Australia. The host for the 'top 25 search' is the Global Restoration Network - an online hub set up by the Society for Ecological Restoration International (SERI) to provide information on ecological restoration. The launch of the project was part of the preparations for SERI's international conference to be held in Perth in August 2009, the first time the international conference will be held in the southern hemisphere.
Photography by John Stewart ©