Department of Conservation staff outlined its new community-led and partnership focus at the Conservation Inc conference in Dunedin yesterday.
About 225 representatives from conservation trusts and organisations around New Zealand are attending the two-day event at the Dunedin Centre.
During question time, Rick Menzies, of the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust, said
it struggled to fund operational expenses such as administration.
Doc, as the biggest funder of projects on private lands, needed to review its policies to fund such expenses, because if it set the example ''everyone else would follow''.
''We could concentrate on we want to do, which is not scratching around looking for funds but getting out and doing the work.''
Mahinepua Radar Hill Landcare Group spokeswoman Marj Cox, of Northland, said continuity of funding was extremely difficult to get.
''The small groups are the backbones of the conservation movement. If we do not introduce conservation to the people in our communities, they don't hear about it.''
Doc director-general Lou Sanson said the information it had was that for every $1 it put into community conservation, it got $4 back.
''It's a pretty good return. There is an awful lot of good stuff going on, but how do we make it sustainable?''In an interview, Mr Sanson said he had heard the concerns ''loud and clear'' and would be having a good think about them.
Issues about the security of investment as people moved through organisations and how funds could be reprioritised would be worked through.
There were some great examples of community groups working together and Doc saw its role as ''enabling'' those relationships.
''I don't have the answer right at the moment but they've clearly put it on my radar.''
Conservation Minister Nick Smith told the conference the Government would not step back from funding conservation as a result of its new focus on partnerships and community.
As part of a review of conservation boards, consideration was being given to a concept of community funding of about $4 million, now allocated nationally, being divided between regions and allocated by boards, depending on community need.
Doc biodiversity funds manager Paula Wilson said a close look was being taken at how funds were distributed and how Doc could connect community groups with other sources of available government funding.
