Gecko Trust NZ
Gecko NZ Trust was founded in 1995 in Wellington by Chris Ferkins and Katherine Short. Their aim was to encourage conservation in New Zealand communities by mentoring conservation projects, and facilitating conservation-related employment and relationships between businesses and communities wishing to care for their local biodiversity.
Gecko NZ Trust is now a firmly established non-profit organisation fulfilling its goal to support better social and ecological outcomes in communities.
Our tailor-made programmes combine innovative and creative leading edge practices along with our experience in ecological restoration, community engagement and entrepreneurship to successfully deliver our programmes.
We believe that a healthy relationship between nature and communities is essential to community and ecological wellbeing, and that our role is to mentor and facilitate community-led change.
Vision
A healthy relationship between nature and communities across New Zealand.
Mission
People healing nature healing people
Purpose
People tell us they’d like to know their neighbours better and improve the environment. They wonder what can they do – especially locally where they can see and benefit from the changes. Existing community groups feel they could achieve more – but how? Gecko’s purpose is to support both communities and community groups, using innovative and creative tools we have developed, to achieve their specific goals.
Philosophy
Our philosophy is to support community and community groups to achieve their goals instead of doing it for them. Where there is a need, we aim to build the capacity of others to help them help themselves.
We believe the integration of ecological and community wellbeing is essential in order to create a strong, healthy and dynamic relationship between people and nature.
Get Involved
There are so many ways to be involved! For more information about our services or to see if we can help you, email us geckonztrust@gmail.com or visit https://www.facebook.com/geckotrust. We would also like to hear what you do – and what we can learn from you.
More About Gecko
Gecko works with communities in Auckland to develop a self-sustainable model of extensive community engagement that provides considerable social and environmental benefits.
Our primary objectives are to:
- empower and support communities to achieve their vision and goals with their neighbours
- share skills and knowledge to build capacity in neighbourhoods, including best practice strategies
- help build local leadership across all stakeholders in the community, enabling social cohesion and creating connected, resilient communities
- develop networks of key partners for community groups that ensure successful and sustainable projects
- encourage community groups and individuals to go beyond these projects becoming more active in other community activities
- increase wellbeing by educating and supporting people to care for, restore and regenerate our biodiversity
- empower communities to look beyond their own neighbourhoods and link with like-minded neighbourhoods and larger regional projects like The North-West Wildlink
Email us geckonztrust@gmail.com or visit https://www.facebook.com/geckotrust to find out more.