Deep Cove Outdoor Education Deep Cove/Taipaririki is an arm of Pātea/Doubtful Sound and is the starting point for many land and sea based adventures.  In 1971, the Deep Cove Outdoor Education Trust (DCOET) was established to promote and educate tourists and school aged children on the importance of conservation and environmentally friendly practices in the remote Fiordland National Park.  The DCOET runs a hostel and welcomes schools from across the country to this beautiful place. 

The Leslie Hutchins Conservation Foundation Trust partnered with Real Journeys to provide the services of professional nature guides who spend two days delivering  conservation education to school groups.  The nature guides have a wealth of experience to share with groups, answering endless questions and supporting the school’s program.  This is free to schools, and deepens the experience that groups have while on camp.

In between Bluff and Invercargill, the small village of Omaui sits next to two reserves, one administered by the Invercargill City Council and the other by DOC, that are remnants of the lowland coastal forests that once covered the area.  There are large rātā, some up to 800 years old, rimu, totara, birds, invertebrates and native lizards.  Visitors are able to enjoy the reserves with a walking track forming a popular loop walk through the bush. 

The Omaui Landcare Charitable Trust (OLCT) has been trapping introduced mammalian predators in the reserves since 2013 in an effort to protect the bush.  In 2016, they received a grant from the Leslie Hutchins Conservation Foundation Trust to help them in this work.  The OLCT is run by volunteers who spent many hours walking trap lines and re-setting traps.  The grant from the LHCFT allowed the OLCT to buy replacement lures and gas cylinders for the re-settable trap network that they had just established.  These traps need fewer volunteer hours to run, and free up the Trust for other jobs on the reserves such as monitoring introduced predators, bird counts and just enjoying being on the reserves. 

The bush takes time to recover from the effects of introduced predators, but the signs are encouraging.  In 2020, the OLCT volunteers are still trapping, but are also seeing large flocks of kereru and hearing groups of red-crowned kākāriki chattering to each other.

The deep, cold water in Fiordland’s fiords is home to all types of creatures. We would recognise the dolphins and seals, but we know much less about some of the other creatures living there.  Sponges are animals that spend their whole lives attached to hard surfaces and play an essential part in the fiord’s water quality and forming habitats for other creatures.

However, all might not be well with Fiordland’s sponges. Researchers were recently shocked to find many bleached sponges – animals that were usually a soft brown colour were a stark, bright, white.  James Bell, a sponge expert from Victoria University, Wellington, sought support from the Leslie Hutchins Conservation Foundation to do urgent follow-up research to learn more about this sponge bleaching event. 

Funds from the LHCF allowed James and his team to work out that the bleached sponges are still alive but are not doing well. It allowed them to explore whether unusually high seawater temperatures are causing stress for the sponges and whether the beached sponges were more likely to be eaten by fish.  They were also able to get samples of the sponges to take back to the lab to do further research. This important research is ongoing, and the LHCF is delighted to have been able to help out.

The Fiordland Trails Trust’s plans to complete the Lake2Lake Trail have been given a boost,
thanks to the Les Hutchins Conservation Foundation. The Lake2Lake Trail runs from Te Anau to Manapouri; the majority of the 28km being off-road. However, to complete the full trail, currently users must travel on the State Highway for 4km.
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The Fiordland Trails Trust has put forward plans to complete the trail, creating an off-road
section between Supply Bay Road and Balloon Loop. Before the plans to connect the trail can
move forward, an ecological assessment is required to outline any ecological impact of the
proposed new section of track.
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The Les Hutchins Conservation Foundation, a foundation set up to support both nature-based
programmes and conservation, has supported FTT with a $15,000 grant towards the ecological
assessment. Fiordland Trails Trust Chair David Boniface says the grant is a huge boost to the Trust’s work to
progress the trail completion.
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“The Trust is very aware of our obligations of looking after the environment that makes the
Lake2Lake Trail so special, and the ecological assessment is an important step for us as we
seek to obtain a resource consent and to complete the trail,” he says. “This important work is not inexpensive, so the support of the Les Hutchins Conservation Foundation is both immensely valuable and genuinely appreciated. While we are still seeking further funding for this work, this is a fantastic boost and we are
really excited about progressing with the report.”

The Lake2Lake Trail, in its current form, attracts tens of thousands of bikers, runners, walkers and other trail users annually. The Fiordland Trails Trust is confident that completing the trail will only add to that, and support positive environmental, social, and economic impacts, improving safety and an enhanced user experience of moving users away from the road for the Fiordland
area.