Growing a beautiful Aotearoa, together.

There is some amazing work happening in Wellington to protect our backyard and wildlife and for the next two months, visitors to the airport will have the opportunity to see what has been happening and how they can help.

Today, in partnership with Trees That Count, we have installed an interactive display in the terminal showcasing the work we’ve been doing with Te Motu Kairangi and Predator Free Wellington to preserve Miramar Peninsula as a space for future generations to enjoy.

The display provides lots of fun facts about native trees unique to Aotearoa and our local environment and there will also be a competition to get the kids involved.

About the groups involved

Trees That Count are a charity helping New Zealanders plant lots more native trees, which means less carbon dioxide in the air and more places for our native wildlife to thrive.

Through the generosity of New Zealanders and businesses like ourselves, Trees That Count has supported close to 500 planting projects around the country with over 500,000 native trees. They’re hoping to grow the movement to help New Zealanders plant millions more native trees in communities across the country.

Te Motu Kairangi — Miramar Ecological Restoration is a volunteer group who have so far planted over 17,000 native trees on land surrounding the airport with the aim of restoring ecological health on the Peninsula.

Miramar Peninsula was once an island teaming with life in a lush coastal forest and during the time of early Polynesian settlement it was given the name Te Motu Kairangi, meaning ‘Precious Island’.

Predator Free Wellington aims to make Wellington the World’s First Predator Free Capital City, removing rats, possums, stoats and weasels from an area of 30,000 hectares.

All over Wellington there are tens of thousands of people trapping in their backyards and local reserves. So far 58,976 pests have been caught in Wellington, seeing our native bird population growing.

Our involvement

We love Wellington City, and it’s important to us that we’re good neighbours and give back to the community around us.

We want to look after what’s in our own backyard, and one way we’re doing that is by supporting native tree planting through Trees That Count.

We’ve funded over 5,500 native trees with environmental charity Trees That Count, 3,500 of which have been planted with local restoration group Te Motu Kairangi to help them beautify and restore the stunning Miramar Peninsula. Our team even got to pitch in on planting day.

We’ve also worked with Predator Free Wellington to install traps and bait stations around the perimeter of the airport – creating a ‘virtual barrier’ that supports the eradication of rats, stoats and weasels off the Peninsula and helps make sure all our native species have the best chance of surviving and thriving.

Our partnership with Trees That Count is the beginning of a long-term project for Wellington Airport. By planting native trees in our backyard, we benefit our local environment and community and also help to mitigate our own carbon emissions.