Ever wondered how your local environment is being looked after? Franklin Local Board has invested nearly $900,000 this financial year in a range of environmental and sustainability initiatives to restore and protect the natural environment and build awareness around individual carbon emissions at a local level.
Here are five exciting initiatives the local board has committed to for your neighbourhood and how you can be involved.
Did you know the long-tailed bat (pekapeka-tou-roa) won New Zealand's 2021 Bird of the Year contest?
Finding Franklin’s Bats ($60,000)
Franklin’s rare pekapeka/long tailed bats are getting VIP treatment as the Finding Franklin Bats project ramps up its mission to protect this elusive taonga. The 2025/2026 programme is packed with radio tracking, acoustic monitoring and mark recapture work, with kaitiaki, volunteers and landowners teaming up to map how bats move through Franklin’s rural landscape.
This year, the team is also tuning in to other nocturnal locals — using the same acoustic skills to detect ngā manu o te pō, including threatened matuku hūrepo and ruru.
Community enthusiasm is soaring too. Four workshops trained 51 locals in backyard bat monitoring, while another four two day sessions taught 30 participants telemetry skills. The project even lit up the night with four public bat walks, including a Halloween special and the much loved “bat disco.”
The latest field season ran from 13 November to 7 December 2025, with transmitters revealing new secrets of pekapeka behaviour. With more iwi and volunteers training as telemetry experts and certified bat handlers, Franklin’s network of nocturnal guardians keeps growing — and its wildlife is thriving for it.
Freeing Franklin from predators ($230,000)
Communities across Franklin are leading the charge and take back control in the war against pest animals and plants.
The Predator Free programme empowers landowners to take on pests by forming their own battalion of locals to divide and conquer. And so far they’re winning the battle – with growing demand and capacity reaching its limits, troops have been servicing requests from local conservation groups, businesses and residents, while facilitating partnerships within the Franklin community to boost control at a landscape scale which will enhance biodiversity outcomes for Franklin.
Follow Predator Free Franklin to find out how you can get involved.
Finding Nemo’s friends in Franklin ($60,000)
The mission to find Nemo’s tiny mates, rare shortjaw kōkopu and declining inanga in Franklin has not proven to be easy. So far this financial year, the programme is gaining momentum with 40 monitoring sites on private land locked in with landowners and surveys have commenced. These swimmers are vital to protecting the environment as they contribute to the water quality of our freshwater ecosystems.
Local fish kaitiaki (guardians) and rangatahi are being trained to learn more about the mysterious species to track them down. With better understanding of their population, they can be protected and ultimately improve Franklin’s ecological health and water quality.
The Manukau Harbour Forum was allocated nearly $94,000 in total from nine local boards for the 2025/2026 financial year.
Manukau Harbour’s guardians ($10,400+)
Wrapped around the Manukau Harbour’s coastline is Franklin and eight other local board areas, that have come to the party and invested in the advocacy group, the Manukau Harbour Forum to help make the harbour sparkle again. Over the past 16 years, the forum has passionately engaged with community and interest groups to restore and protect New Zealand’s second largest harbour.
The forum currently focuses on strengthening engagement and reach with mana whenua partners, rangatahi and community through presentations, collaboration with education teams, conservation groups, nurseries, and ecological and climate resilience gatherings.
Total funding from all nine local boards supports a coordinator to spread the word about the forum through communications planning and delivery, and coordination of planting days to mobilise volunteers.
Want to contribute to the forum? Contact the Manukau Harbour Forum.
Karamū (Coprosma robusta) seedlings thriving at the Papakura Stream Restoration Project Nursery, boosting planting supplies for a healthier Papakura Stream.
Papakura Stream makes waves into Franklin ($25,000)
Locals have come out in droves to care for Papakura Stream – another big body of water that needs a lot of love. By the end of 2025, an impressive total of 1,000 volunteers committed 3,600 natives in 2,600 hours at 41 planting events, exceeding the annual goal with 42,000+ plants along the stream.
As it stretches across a 63-kilometre area through Franklin and reaches into the Manukau Harbour, the stream's combined investment from Franklin, Manurewa and Papakura local boards’ over the past five years has made serious gains, with more than 120,000 plants sown, and 1.5 tonnes of rubbish collected across the area.
Keen to get your hands dirty? Get in touch with Conservation Volunteers New Zealand to find out how you can get involved.
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