User:LindaCardiffnz/Nature Connections

Nature Connections
Ten partners across Wellington regions are working together under the Nature Connections banner to ask their communities to: ‘Join us to discover Wellington’s inspiring nature stories’.

Nature Connections is supported by the Wellington Regional Amenities Fund. This not-for-profit initiative aims to provide a seamless, consistent, professional visitor experience: showcasing Wellington as a unified ecologically-friendly part of New Zealand; enhancing our reputation as a place to live, play and visit – its conservation and restoration activities making it attractive to tourists, a source of pride and call to action for its community.

Partners
Our Year 1 pilot project involved Wellington Zoo and ZEALANDIA (lead partners), Pukaha Mount Bruce, Staglands Wildlife Reserve and DOC/ Kaitiaki Harbour Islands Board.

In Year 2 Wellington Botanic Gardens, Otari-Wilton’s Bush, Kaitoke Regional Park; Battle Hill Regional Farm Forest Park and Nga Manu Nature Reserve joined the partnership.

Each project partner is passionate about conservation, restoration and reaching out into the community.

What the project does
Nature Connections is uses the power of our collective vision and passion, and desire to share what we do, to turn competitors into colleagues.

Nature Connections builds skills, knowledge and capacity. We work with our partners to develop experiences with a greater impact than can be accessed or delivered solo.

We network and share stories, research, data and a common training platform. After each year, partner staff are confident trainers in an internationally-recognised model for engaging staff/ visitor interactions.

There are 15 videos of stories that connect each partner site – told by groups of staff have been created and showcased at each Year 1 organisation.