1080 does not kill kiwis – on the contrary, it helps them live

Summer reissue: Misleading remarks in the media erode public confidence in a pest-control tool we urgently need to save species, writes Nicola Toki, the threatened species ambassador for the Department of Conservation. This post was first published July 17 2018 Last Thursday night, Newshub led the 6pm news with a report about 75 kilograms of … Read more

1080 does not kill kiwis – on the contrary, it helps them live

Misleading remarks in the media erode public confidence in a pest-control tool we urgently need to save species, writes Nicola Toki, the threatened species ambassador for the Department of Conservation. Last Thursday night, Newshub led the 6pm news with a report about 75 kilograms of 1080 pellets being dumped and buried by a contractor to … Read more

Why the survival of NZ’s wildlife is in our hands

The idea that New Zealand’s threatened species can somehow safely ‘co-exist’ with the onslaught of introduced predators is irresponsible and untrue, writes the Department of Conservation’s Nicola Toki. New Zealand is facing a biodiversity crisis. With more than 4000 species in trouble, some scientists have given us the dubious honour of the country with the … Read more

Killing with kindness

As New Zealanders rally our collective efforts in the pursuit of the ‘crazy and ambitious’ goal of a Predator Free New Zealand by 2050, we mustn’t lose our hearts, writes Nicola Toki. In 2003, freshly minted with a Zoology degree, I began my first job with the Department of Conservation. It only took a couple … Read more

Love lifts us up: Nicola Toki fangirls out meeting Jane Goodall in NZ

Jane Goodall is mostly famous for her work with chimpanzees. Her greater feat, writes lifelong admirer Nicola Toki, is showing that we are deeply connected to the living world around us – that through kindness, we can turn things around for our planet. “I have one wish for people in NZ. And that would be that they would be … Read more