Our JOURNEY began…

when our parents, passionate about the outdoors, and after a few years working around Fiordland involved with conservation and the wild venison industry, built our family home in remote coastal Northern Fiordland.

Being raised for much of our childhood four days walk from the nearest road and the contrast of moving to town, it was easy to see the large gap between people and the natural environment. For me the future of that natural connection was made, empowered and impassioned by inspirations such as board riding, fishing, free diving hiking, hunting, photography, aviation and more, anything that basically inspires people to be connected and involved with the natural world around them. We started Awarua Guides to help share and bring people closer to that precious natural environment, to help people find that space of inspiration and grow those natural connections. At Awarua Guides we want future generations to feel empower by and connected to the natural environment, to know that there’s a future for them in that space, and to hold that awareness and protection of space within their highest values.

As kids our parents always encouraged us to grow and gather our food as much as possible, to recycle and reuse where possible, to collect rubbish off the beach. They despised introduced possums, stoats and gorse and the impact they had and encouraged us to make an effort to remove introduced and noxious pests where possible. They valued introduced wild foods such as venison, trout and rabbits and encouraged the enjoyment and responsibility to harvest these wild resources in an effort to lesson their impact on natural environment. The result was that the stretch of land in front of our home would seldom have gorse, that possums and stoats were regularly trapped, and that our dinners would often feature delicious menu of wild caught items such as venison and trout.

These are much of the values we have chosen to pass onto our guests. Living close to the land, being inspired by nature, catching what we eat, only taking what we need, collecting rubbish off the beach, digging out introduced weeds, working alongside the efforts of Department of Conservation, trapping introduced pest, and helping passing hikers with advise and support as much as we can.

We increased our trapping efforts with our guiding business from 2010. You can see some examples of our efforts and interactions with nature below.

In recent years the local white baiting community has got on board and we have become the Big Bay Awarua Conservation Trust. We are really proud of the efforts of local community for becoming stewards and ambassadors for conservation. Care and restoration of the planet will only come through a change in human awareness and interaction in the natural environment.

To help the cause we have donated our logo, build & donated the the website, provided imagery, helped with logisitics and on the ground proceedings.

You can view the site and get on board with support by visiting

https://www.bigbayawaruaconservationtrust.org.nz