Chelsea McGaw spent eight years working in the Three Waters department at the Dunedin City Council before landing a "dream job" at the national conservation organisation this winter.
"I’ve always really cherished what we have in this country — and I’ve seen it degrade over the last years or over my lifetime," she said.
With an environmental science background, Mrs McGaw said her experience working on "regulatory policy-type stuff " at the council should help as she advocates for meeting the challenge of climate change and maintaining biodiversity in the region.
Much of the role involved making submissions on consent applications, district plan changes, or similar.
However, some of the on-the-ground conservation work happening in the South was exciting and Mrs McGaw said she hoped to get involved there too.
Forest & Bird’s Dunedin branch was doing good work with bats in the Catlins, for example. Seeing that project first-hand would allow her to see long-tailed bats for the first time.
Further afield there was the just-announced "huge" Predator Free Rakiura project, which she said she hoped to get involved in somehow.
If successful, an extensive trapping effort could lead to the re-introduction of species such as kakapo, takahe, and tieke to Stewart Island.
"That will be a massive, massive advancement, not just for Aotearoa, but for the whole world, because it’ll be the first inhabited island that will be predator free."
Mrs McGaw said she viewed herself as an optimist about conservation work because there were so many passionate people out there doing good work.
The area she covers extends from the Haast and Waitaki rivers south, and includes Stewart Island and New Zealand’s subantarctic islands.
Mrs McGaw said she was looking forward to working with and alongside tangata whenua as well as building relationships with every council, group, society or organisation doing conservation work in the region.
