$60,465 is heading out into the Whakatipu Basin to support seven community-led projects through this year’s Love Queenstown Impact Grants, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

From native plant restoration and wilding control to wildlife protection and dark sky biodiversity monitoring, the grants are backing the people doing the mahi to care for this place, and helping them keep it moving.

There’s a lovely sense of connection across these initiatives, with organisations building on each other’s work, sharing resources and bringing different skills and people together. It’s a good reminder that lasting change rarely comes from one project or one organisation alone.

And, of course, none of it happens without the people who make Love Queenstown possible. Contributions from local businesses, visitors and the wider community are turned into practical, on-the-ground action. It’s a brilliant example of what happens when we lead tourism, for good.

Let’s meet the seven groups getting stuck into the mahi this year.

Impact Grants

Whakatipu Reforestation Trust | $14,975

Caring for native plants across the Whakatipu

Whakatipu Reforestation Trust has spent more than a decade restoring native biodiversity across the Whakatipu Basin through revegetation, education, collaboration and community action.

This year, a $9,000 Impact Grant will support the ongoing maintenance of approximately 140,000 native plants already established across restoration sites throughout the district. While planting days are often the most visible part of restoration, years of follow-up care are needed to ensure plants survive and thrive.

Funding will support essential work including weeding, mulching, fencing checks and pest control, helping protect thousands of volunteer hours and years of community investment.

A further $5,975, raised through partnerships with NZONE Queenstown, GWD Motor Group, Canyon Brewing and Ezy Tours, along with support for Love Queenstown’s industry planting day, will help establish more native seedlings and grow community involvement across the region.

“Whakatipu Reforestation Trust is thrilled to be a recipient of a Love Queenstown Impact Grant. Since 2015 our community has planted over 140,000 native trees across the Whakatipu Basin, but getting a seedling in the ground is only the first step - it's the years of weeding, pest control and site care that turn a planting into a thriving habitat. This funding will help us protect that investment, so the thousands of volunteer hours already given aren't undone. We're grateful to Love Queenstown for backing the unglamorous but essential work that keeps our keystone sites, and the biodiversity they support, alive and growing."
— Sararose Brown, Trust Manager, Whakatipu Reforestation Trust

Arrowtown Choppers | $8,690

Restoring native forest above Arrowtown

Arrowtown Choppers is a community-led organisation dedicated to restoring the hills behind Arrowtown through wilding tree removal and native forest regeneration.

Since 2020, its biannual Beech Party has brought together volunteers from across the community to plant more than 30,000 native trees around the Sawpit Gully Track.

An $8,690 Impact Grant will support the 2027 Beech Party by funding key consumables, including protective tree guards, for nearly 3,000 native seedlings. This support significantly improves survival rates during the plants’ most vulnerable years, helping create healthy, self-sustaining native forest.The project continues to combine practical environmental action with community participation, giving locals, schools, businesses and visitors an opportunity to leave a lasting positive impact on the landscape.

Mana Tāhuna Charitable Trust | $12,100

Restoring the mauri of Wai Whakaata

Mana Tāhuna Charitable Trust works to strengthen the wellbeing of people and place by weaving Te Ao Māori and mātauranga Māori into environmental and community initiatives.

An $8,945 Impact Grant will support the planting of around 1,000 native species along the edges of Wai Whakaata / Lake Hayes, one of the basin’s most treasured freshwater ecosystems. Plants like carex are a natural filter, trapping sediment and nutrients before they reach the water – helping improve water quality and support native fish and birdlife across the lake edge.

Schools, businesses, community volunteers and visitors will all have opportunities to get involved, helping restore the health and mauri of the lake while building a locally sourced supply of native plants for future restoration efforts.

The Trust has also been awarded the $2,500 Partner’s Choice Grant, voted on by Love Queenstown’s key partners and supporters, along with a further $655 in pre-tagged funding, to support its wider restoration efforts across the Wai Whakaata catchment.

“Huge mihi to Love Queenstown for our funding this year and our very kind award of the Partners’ Choice grant. We are so lucky to receive this support to help restore Wai Whakaata and involve our wonderful businesses and communities. This grant will help us to continue that mahi and keep planting nutrient-intercepting super plants to clean up our waterways. We can't wait to get started!” – Alice Lord, Taiao Manager

Tucker Beach Wildlife Trust | $6,500

Protecting braided river wildlife

Tucker Beach Wildlife Trust restores and protects the Tucker Beach Wildlife Reserve through habitat restoration, pest control, wildlife monitoring and community engagement.

A $6,500 Impact Grant will support ongoing rabbit control effort across 37 hectares of the reserve. Rabbits damage restoration plantings, disturb nesting habitat and attract predators into sensitive braided river ecosystems.

By reducing rabbit numbers, the project will help protect treatened native bird species, including banded dotterels, while supporting the long-term success of habitat restoration work already underway.

The reserve is visited by thousands of people each year and provides valuable opportunities for learning, volunteering and connecting with one of the region’s most unique ecological environments.

Whakatipu Wildlife Trust | $9,000

Discovering the Whakatipu Lizard Project

Whakatipu Wildlife Trust works across the basin to protect native wildlife through predator control, biodiversity monitoring, education and community involvement.

A $9,000 Impact Grant will support the Whakatipu Lizard Project, delivered in partnership with Southern Lakes Sanctuary. Following a successful pilot that included the discovery of threatened cryptic skinks at Jardine Park, the project will expand monitoring across three restoration sites while recruiting and training community volunteers.

The work aims to better understand how predator control supports native lizard populations and to raise awareness of these often-overlooked taonga species. As well as contributing valuable scientific knowledge, the project helps connect people with the native wildlife living in some of the basin’s most visited landscapes.‍

"We are stoked to have Love Queenstown’s support again this year, this time for our Whakatipu Lizard Project. This is the next chapter in a journey Love Queenstown have backed from the start. The 2024 grant supported us to expand our AT220 possum trapping network, and the 2025 grant helped establish our wider biodiversity monitoring programme. This year's funding extends that same monitoring capability to lizards, a taonga species that's easy to overlook. Delivered with support from Southern Lakes Sanctuary, this project sees our team and volunteers monitoring cryptic skink, southern grass skink, and McCann's skink at Jardine Park, Slopehill, and Whitechapel Reserve. Ngā mihi nui to the Love Queenstown team for backing this often-overlooked corner of our biodiversity” - Anna Harding-Shaw, Executive Officer, Whakatipu Wildlife Trust.

Tāhuna Glenorchy Dark Skies Group | $5,520

Discovering the creatures of the night

Tāhuna Glenorchy Dark Skies Group helps protect the internationally recognised Tāhuna Glenorchy Dark Sky Sanctuary while inspiring people to learn about the wildlife that thrives beneath its night skies.

A $5,520 Impact Grant will support the group’s Creatures of the Night project, combining biodiversity monitoring with hands-on community education. Activities include bat monitoring, moth and lizard surveys, citizen science opportunities, educational resources and interactive tools designed to engage both residents and visitors.

Building on previous conservation successes, the project will help deepen understanding of Glenorchy’s unique nocturnal ecosystems while encouraging more people to play an active role in protecting them.

‍“We are so grateful to be receiving this funding that allows us to build on the previous two years’ worth of work in dark skies biodiversity monitoring. This year, we’ll get to put bat monitoring literally into the hands of our community members who will be able to go out and listen for the bats both at home and out in the hills and help grow our kete of knowledge” - Leslie Van Gelder, Tāhuna Glenorchy Dark Skies Group.

Whakatipu Wilding Control Group | $3,680

Equipping community conservation

Whakatipu Wilding Control Group is a community-led charity working to protect the Whakatipu’s iconic landscapes and alpine biodiversity from invasive wilding conifers.

Volunteers are at the heart of this work, contributing thousands of hours each year to controlling one of the region’s most significant environmental threats.

A $3,680 Impact Grant will help replace ageing volunteer tools, including saws, loppers and pruning equipment used across community wilding control projects. While simple in concept, reliable equipment is vital for keeping volunteers safe, engaged and effective.

The project will support ongoing community and visitor participation while strengthening long-term efforts to protect native ecosystems and outstanding natural landscapes across the basin.

“Thanks to the Love Queenstown Impact Grant, WCG’s Ben Lomond Adopt-a-Plot holders and dedicated wilding control volunteers will have access to more of the high-quality tools they need to continue their valuable conservation work, helping to protect our landscapes and biodiversity from wilding pine threats” – Suzanne Rose, Whakatipu Wilding Control Group

Looking ahead

Love Queenstown Endowment Fund

Alongside this year’s grants, we’re also building for the years ahead.

Every year, 80% of everything that’s donated to Love Queenstown goes into funding today’s environmental mahi, while the remaining 20% is invested into the Love Queenstown Endowment Fund. This year, that’s meant a further $15,115 going into the endowment, taking it to over $30,000 in total. It’s a long-term investment designed to support this mahi across the Whakatipu Basin for generations to come.

Ngā mihi nui

Ngā mihi nui (thank you) to our supporters: visitors, locals, businesses, volunteers and donors. Your generosity turns a whole lot ofindividual contributions into something bigger: practical, community-led action at a scale that makes a difference.

In particular, we’d like to acknowledge this year’s Impact Partners: Skyline Queenstown, Ziptrek Ecotours, Alpine Luxury Tours, Tourism Innovation Group, Relax It’s Done, Southern Trails, Tauck International, Catch a Fish and Avani Hotels, along with the Queenstown Airport and Queenstown iSite.

It’s supporters like these, and everyone else who’s chipped in along the way, who make the real difference. We’re just glad to help connect this generosity to the people doing the mahi on the ground.

Want to learn more about the impact we’re making? Check out the latest Love Queenstown Impact Report for all the details.