16 Oct 2025

Sandy and Robin Toy: caring for Kahurangi

From Nine To Noon, 10:05 am on 16 October 2025
Sandy and Robin Toy, authors of Caring for Kahurangi: the story of Friends of Flora

Photo: Ruedi Mosimann

On the eastern edge of the Kahurangi National Park lies the Flora Stream area. It's rugged country, clad in beech forest, beneath the marble peaks of Mt Arthur range, and dissected by clear streams.

And over the past 25 years, a small community conservation group has been working to restore native fauna to the 10 thousand hectare area. Friends of Flora began when roroa or great spotted kiwi, whio / blue duck and the giant snail - powelliaphanta were non existant. Groups of volunteers have been trapping, monitoring and translocating - and slowly but surely, bird song and wildlife diversity has returned to the area.

Sandy and Robin Toy are members of Friends of Flora - they've written a book about Friends of Flora with images by another volunteer Reudi Mosimann.

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