When Catherine Bircher left England, she and her partner arrived in Auckland longing for a place out of the city, where the trees and birds thrived.
They found what they were looking for in Franklin, never realising it would turn Catherine into a committed conservationist battling the rats, possums, ferrets and stoats that inhabited the property.
Now she’s so involved with Predator Free Franklin she’s featured in a YouTube video released for International Women’s Day and celebrating her as a Women in Conservation, as she talks about the difference the movement makes.
It’s a difference well-known to Franklin Local Board chair Andy Baker, who says what started out as a few committed people catching possums, has snowballed into a movement that stretches across the board area.
“We should celebrate the work people like Catherine and the other volunteers do. Without them, the work that has led to native birdlife returning to areas it had been lost from wouldn’t happen.”
Groups have sprung up along the Awhitu Peninsula, across the fertile Pukekohe soils and into the Hūnua Ranges and beyond.
Board deputy chair and Wairoa subdivision representative Angela Fulljames has seen people power in action.
“We’ve seen trapping, watched landowners fencing streams and planting their banks, and families turning out to put more natives into the ground.”
She encourages anyone interested in the environment to contact Predator Free Franklin via its website. “There is only one environment, and there is always more to do.”
