CLAAS Harvest Centre Director & Founder Herby Whyte spent much of his childhood exploring the bush around his Invercargill home and his ensuing lifetime interest in conservation and birdlife has led to his company becoming the first major corporate funder of the Valleys Conservation Project.

The farm machinery distributor has pledged to help protect native birdlife from introduced predators in Fiordland’s remote Irene Valley. Landpower will assist in establishing a network of traps in the upper 20km of the river valley and maintain them for the next five years.

The Valleys Project offers private individuals and corporates the opportunity to undertake significant yet affordable conservation projects in partnership with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the New Zealand Nature Fund. Its principal objective is predator control through the establishment and maintenance of traplines to target the stoats and rats which have wreaked havoc on native bird populations. Participating individuals and organisations can ‘adopt’ a geographically specific region and provide the necessary finance and volunteers to install and service the automatic traps every six months.

Walters R W & Sons