Meet our Team
Charissa – Waterways Collective Project Facilitator
“I feel privileged to live on Herald Island by the water. For me, this privilege comes with a need to care for the land and waterways around me as I watch the growing destruction we are causing to our environment in a time of climate emergency, flooding and intensification. I bring my skills as an award-winning Registered Architect and Fellow of the NZIA, and draw on 25 plus years of professional experience. My work is towards regenerative practice and living architecture – working on the premise that we live in a complex living world and require responding in kind. Collaboration is key, working with Council, iwi and other caring collaborators we can bring positive change that creates better communities and regenerates the local biodiversity and mauri of our waterways. One that nurtures potential and enrich relationships with others and the world around us.”
Annette – Marketing and Communication Coordinator
Annette is co-ordinator of Living Whenuapai which has been leading restoration projects in the Whenuapai area for 5 years. To date the clearing and re-planting projects have been at Waimarie Beach Reserve, Malcolm Hahn Memorial Reserve and more recently Riverlea Reserve. The Living Whenuapai Team also co-ordinates predator control, co-ordinating back yard predator pulsing and trap lines in the wider Whenuapai landscape. Annette is passionate about conservation in New Zealand, in particular the Northwest Wildlink in Auckland and Predator Free 2050 for New Zealand.
Jan – Co-Secretary and Community Nurseries Niche Facilitator
Jan has been caring for the Herald Island environment since 1993. In 1995 she was an inaugural member of ‘Keep Herald Island Beautiful’ which changed its name to ‘Herald Island Environmental Group’ in 2016.
Her passion for the environment developed after she married John and moved from Western Australia to his Herald Island waterfront home; awakening in her a desire to identify, care for and restore the native vegetation along the foreshore. This led to the formation of a Herald Island community nursery, where local native plants are grown from locally sourced genetic material.
Jan leads the environmental group’s work of ‘Bringing Back the Birds’, which is occurring as the island’s unique natural environment is restored; through reserve and household predator and environmental weed control, bird counts, locally sourced native plantings and waterways regeneration.
Tim – Convenor
Tim’s passion for the environment has developed through his love of their family holiday block down on the Coromandel coast. After watching introduced animal pests destroy both native and endemic flora and fauna over a number of decades, the time came to do something about it. This has driven him to absorb and apply best practice principles to flora and fauna pest control on a project which has expanded to 300 hectares. This passion has now become a driving force in Tim’s life and his aim is to assist projects – both on the ground and at a governance level – to drive towards their objectives. Of particular interest is PF2050 and technologies to assist with pest fauna control and potential eradication across a landscape scale. With Tim’s business governance background, he is looking to assist UWEN by building structure and accountability around their governance processes whilst maintaining the unique character of the members groups involved.
Neil – Waterways Collective Project Facilitator
After working in restoration in the Waitakere Ranges and the Whau River Catchment for over a decade, Neil joined Kaipātiki Project in November 2018. As project manager for Weed Free Trust, Neil developed many useful tools and educational materials to assist private property owners as well as volunteers working on public land.
Nicholas – Community Nurseries Niche Facilitator
Nicholas has been volunteering in his local park, Unsworth Reserve, since 2006, and is part of the Christian conservation group A Rocha. He was the original instigator and conveener of the Upper Harbour Ecology Network (now known as the Upper Waitematā Ecology Network) before being elected to the Upper Harbour Local Board in 2016. He has continued to support the Network as an active member in his volunteer capacity since its inception. Part of his role with A Rocha is growing thousands of native plants in his backyard that are planted in local reserves. Nicholas carries this focus into the Network as one of the facilitators of the Community Nurseries Niche.
Nicola – Co-Secretary
Nicola is the Eco-facilitator for the Greenhithe Community Trust and enjoys empowering and supporting the residents to care for Greenhithe’s environment, whether it be in their backyards, or in our treasured reserves.
Rhiannon – Network Manager
While studying Props and Set Construction Rhiannon discovered her values merging into tangible unison; creativity, social impact and environmental sustainability. She has since continued to cultivate these values by working in the NGO sector in youth engagement, mental health, environmental operations and sustainability in film. At the core of her cross-disciplinary work she emphasizes collaboration, strength based relationships and listening.
Our Team:
Community Nursery Project – Nicholas Mayne & Jan Diprose
Convenor – Tim Johnson
Marketing & Communications – Annette Mitchell
Network Manager – Rachael Pates
Pest Coordinator – Louis Foot
Secretary – Jan Diprose
Waterways Collective – Charissa Snijders & Neil Henderson
Work Plan Co-ordinator – Nicola Robertson
