Our Conservation Story

Here at New Zealand Trails, conservation is close to our hearts, and this is the story of the environmental legacy that we want to leave. If you have landed on this page, then it’s likely that the environmental impact of your own travel is something you take into consideration when deciding which company you want to travel with. If that’s the case, then feel free to read on...

Nestled at the base of the Southern Alps is a leafy village called Arrowtown. When you arrive in Arrowtown and look out at this incredible landscape, what people often don't realise is that this is our home. It’s where we work and where we live. These are the trails we cycle and walk on and the rivers our dogs and kids paddle in. We are lucky to have this as our backyard and want future generations to have the same opportunity to enjoy this incredible area as we have had.

The hills that you look up on as you walk through Arrowtown have been overrun by invasive species for decades and our local tree-planting group the Arrowtown Choppers are working to reforest this area with native plants. In the past 4 years, this group has planted over 26,000 trees in our backyard. 

New Zealand Trails has a grassroots involvement in this project. Our team members donate their time to tree planting, and you’ll often find Nigel, one of the owners of New Zealand Trails out with his chainsaw clearing invasive species and readying the ground for the seedlings. We are also helping to fund the construction of the Arrowtown Choppers Nursery project that will produce enough seedlings for more than 10,000 plants a year to reforest the hills around our home base.

One tree planted for every guest

By travelling with New Zealand Trails, you are directly supporting and growing the Arrowtown Choppers reforestation program. Not only do we donate money and time, we also love to get our guests directly involved with our conservation efforts where we can. Along the Arrow River, we are planting out an area which will one day be a mighty forest, a forest that all of our guests and guides will have helped us plant. If you are on a trip that travels through Arrowtown, you’ll have the opportunity to plant a seedling and leave a small legacy of your own here in New Zealand.

If your trip doesn’t travel through Arrowtown then our team will plant a tree on your behalf during one of our regular planting days.

Why we have chosen to be involved in this project

What we love about being involved with the Arrowtown Choppers is that it’s so much more than just donating some money. We are helping to build something that brings our community together. On planting days, hundreds of local volunteers, including your New Zealand Trails guides and our team behind the scenes, help the Choppers plant thousands of natives along our walking trails and out into our backcountry. The community outreach of this initiative has the potential to splinter off into many smaller actions, whether it inspires people to build their own nurseries, plant natives over introduced species in their backyard, or get out and clear some weeds along their local trail.

Our conservation story is by no means linear and in many respects, it’s just beginning, but it’s one that’s being written by all of us, including you.