Kate has been part of Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust since it was established and was a trustee up until her retirement last year. She came into the organisation with a childhood love of Banks Peninsula and a background in botany and landscape architecture. Her work at the time was managing a farm in the southern bays of the peninsula, Oashore, to enable ecological restoration of its diverse natural habitat patterns, wildlife and the ecological interactions between.
Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū/Banks Peninsula is an extraordinary geological region and the biodiversity jewel for Christchurch and Canterbury. Its origins as an offshore volcanic island, its large size (about 100,000ha, the largest peninsula in Aotearoa), These geological and island origins underpin the extraordinary diversity of life found upon Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū, and have made it a hotspot for local endemism, unique species that exist nowhere else in Aotearoa or the world. The Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust was formed in 2001. It is a non-profit organisation that works with land owners, agencies, sponsors and the wider community to promote the conservation and enhancement of indigenous biodiversity and sustainable land management on Banks Peninsula. We believe Conservation is about people and the Trust wants to inspire people to be passionate about the environment around them, to understand it, their relationship with it, and take action to protect and restore it.