Waikereru

Waikereru

A haven for native birds, plants and animals.

Welcome to Waikereru - an Ark in the Bush. Waikereru is a haven for rare and endangered species of indigenous birds, plants and animals. It is reached by a winding gravel road up an inland valley, just 9 kilometres from Gisborne city on the Tai Rawhiti / East Coast of New Zealand.

From high hill ridges to the west, three streams tumble down steep valleys and across a plain, entering the Waimatā River to the east. A rare surviving strip of lowland bush (Longbush Reserve) runs beside the Waimatā River. The bush is alive with the sound of birds, including tui, bellbirds, fantails, kingfishers, tomtits, whiteheads and many kereru or native pigeons.

Waikereru is a hub for ecological innovation. Its visionary projects include:

It also helped to inspire:

Visiting Waikereru

Waikereru is on private land owned by Dame Anne and Jeremy Salmond.

Longbush Reserve (on the right side of Riverside Road) is open to the public for bushwalks only. No events or gatherings please. Access opposite 910 Riverside Road. As visitors to Longbush Reserve, please note you’re responsible for your own health and safety. Stay on the tracks, be careful around electric fences, traps and streams, and take care of our precious bush.

Waikereru Ecosanctuary (including the Welcome Shelter and 1769 Seed Archive) is home to the Wildlab Tiaki Taiao for local school children. It can be visited by the public on open days only, or by private arrangement.

The Waikereru Hills are actively managed with trapping and shooting, and are not open to the public.

Here’s a chant for Waikereru, composed by Merimeri Penfold:

News

2025

Visitors from Kew Gardens

It was such a pleasure to host two staff members from Kew Gardens at Waikereru last week. They loved the 1769 Seed Archive, and our restoration work in the ...

Scottish Rain Forests 2

In Scotland, we had dinner in Kilmarten with Gordon Gray Stephens, Saving Scotland’s Rainforest advisor, and discussed the research they’re doing into their ...

PAC Studio Carbon Collaboration

Over the past two years, we’ve been working with PAC Studio and Sarosh Mulla, the architect who designed our award-winning Welcome Shelter, on an innovative ...

Spring is Sprung

Spring is sprung at Waikereru, with the puawānanga in full bloom in the 1769 Seed Archive, and biocontrol beetles on some Scotch thistles in Longbush Reserve...

Transition Advisory Group

Our Chair Dame Anne has enjoyed working with a fantastic team of Tairāwhiti locals on a transition of land use from pine plantations to indigenous forests on...

Think like a Forest

Think like a Forest, a beautiful documentary about our Recloaking Papatūānuku native afforestation project, was launched at the Beehive a week ago.

Scientists Galore

Waikereru was a hub of scientific activity last week, with visits by Janet Wilmhurst, palaeoecologist from Manaaki Whenua, who managed to get a fantastic 7m...

Plants on wheels

Today the Tairāwhiti harakeke varieties from the Orchiston pā harakeke at Waikereru have been shifted from their 20 year old site along the foothills, where ...

Waikereru from the rescue helicopter

A very unusual image of Waikereru, showing that the bush on the hills (back of photo) is now very dense. Pasture to closed canopy from pasture in about 13 ye...

Wetland Holding Water

The new wetland is shaping up brilliantly. We didn’t expect the earth bunds to hold water, but as the sediment has washed into them, they’ve become solid an...

The Wetland Works!

Another cause for celebration - the lower pond in the new wetland works, with no lining. The upper pond will need a lining, however.

The Living Room and new wetland

Thanks to the generous support of the Stout Trust and the Eastern and Central Trust, we’re establishing a new wetland by the 1769 Seed Archive for Tairāwhiti...

Certificate of Rongoā - Student Visit

This morning Malcolm, the 1769 Seed Archive Curator had the pleasure of showing the students from the Certificate of Rongoā at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa around t...

Case Studies: A Story of Plant Travel

Waikereru is featuring in another new book, this time Case Studies: A Story of Plant Travel, a glorious study of the role of Wardian cases in shifting plants...

Our Changing World

It was a pleasure to host Claire Concannon from RNZ’s programme ‘Our Changing World’ at Waikereru, where we talked about our ‘seed island’ trial with Tane’s ...

Back to top ↑

2024

Stockyard Creek 20 years on

This video shows how important it is to have some woody debris in streams and rivers - just not the huge rafts we’ve been getting from forestry operations up...

New Pest and Weed Management Plans

We now have two excellent new plans for pest and weed control at Waikereru, by Steve Sawyer from Ecoworks and Marley Ford from Manaaki Whenua. With experts ...

Waikereru in 1988

Check out this historic image of Waikereru in 1988, bare as a baby’s bottom - except of course for Longbush Reserve alongside the Waimatā River.

Pest Free NZ Workshop

It was great to welcome Pest Free NZ and their ‘state-of-the-art’ trapping workshop to Waikereru.

Te Wharau School visit

Te Wharau school students standing on Pā Hill and looking at Motukeo, ancestral mountain and leaping off place of spirits.

Waikereru on Restor

Waikereru has been added to the Restor online map of international restoration projects. Restor is an exciting global project that records data from ecologi...

Inspiring TED talk

Check out this inspiring Ted Talk about how indigenous forest restoration can help us save the future for our children and grandchildren.

Back to top ↑