Dale was an Architectural Designer/Technician, responsible for the design and detailing of many institutional buildings, industrial and complex residential for the early part of his working life. Building construction completed the circle and his company has been Registered Master Builders for almost 40 years, and is now one of the oldest family construction companies in NZ. Dale was also an expert witness for a decade in mediations, due to the leaky building problems.

He has trekked and hunted NZ’s back country for many decades, having built a deep love and concern for the environment, influenced in part by observations. He and his family have been Forest & Bird members for 30 years and has seen the improved influence and successes. His experience as an architect, builder and businessman has helped Matuku Link execute its extensive construction projects over the past years, the metamorphoses of a barn into the current Wetland Education Centre, hundreds of meters of boardwalks and the Jobs4Nature funded pedestrian bridge over the Waitakere River, enabling an accessible route for people using wheelchairs, buggies, walkers and the like.

A former Chartered Accountant, and senior partner in global accounting and consulting practice at Deloitte, Chad Wilkie brings over 30 years of professional and practical business experience to the role of trustee. Chad’s current activities include that of Chair of TEC709 for The Executive Connection, chair of large IT reseller PB Technologies, and trustee and chair of Matuku Link, the wetland restoration project in the Waitākere River Valley at Te Henga / Bethell’s Beach on Auckland’s west coast.

Chad has held a number of governance roles with companies and other organisations. Chad has a B.Com from Auckland University, and is a member of the Institute of Directors (MInstD).

Geoff’s adult life started with a civil service job and the orthodox O.E. of a young kiwi who, upon returning to NZ, was faced with the question: “What to do with my life?” Conservation issues pushed him into a job and an all-consuming hobby which have shaped every day since then. The job, growing native plants, quickly morphed into a full-time nursery business, which in time introduced many plants unknown to the New Zealand public at the time.

The hobby kicked in and it became addictive. Geoff founded the Native Forest Restoration Trust and has spent the past 36 years amassing 7,000 hectares of land as nature reserves around the country.  It gives him ongoing pleasure seeing nature take control and proceed to reintroduce all those species that once flourished in abundance. It has been a life full of satisfaction and gives him hope for the future. Thanks to Geoff’s extensive knowledge on growing native plants, donating materials, time, and expertise, Matuku Link’s nursery quickly became the engine of the project, growing up to 5000 eco-sourced plants and trees per year to revegetate the old paddocks and reinstate them as the wetland ecosystems they should be.

A retired secondary school teacher, John Staniland has been closely involved with Forest & Bird for 50 years and was the first chairman of its Waitākere Branch. He is a founder and honorary ranger of the Society’s 120-hectare Matuku Reserve, which is adjacent to Matuku Link. He organised the purchase of several blocks of forest to bring the Forest & Bird reserve to its present size and has been looking after it ever since the first block was bought in 1979. He has a good knowledge of the vegetation of this area and its bird life and is particularly interested in New Zealand’s different forest types and in educating people about them. John is also active in the Ornithological Society and A Rocha NZ (Christians in Conservation).

An inaugural trustee at Matuku Reserve Trust and an educator at heart, he has contributed since 2016 to the knowledge of people young and old by giving guided tours, growing rare native plants in the nursery and overseeing many volunteer activities as well as doing the manual work of mowing, spraying and planting.

A lifelong interest in fauna and flora, what used to be called “Nature Study”, when he was a child, stayed with John through his adult life. A science degree at Auckland was followed with a medical degree from Otago University. He set up his general medical practice in West Auckland where he had been brought up. John initiated and led the successful Ark in the Park project in 1999. Having bird species previously seen only on off-shore reserves in his beloved Waitākere Ranges was a thrill shared by the many others volunteering and working at the Ark in the Park.

Starting a second project, Habitat Te Henga, adjacent to the Ark in the Park with an aim of protecting wetland species and re-introducing pāteke (brown teal) has also been successful. With fellow Forest & Bird Waitākere committee member John Staniland, John Sumich had his eye on the 37-hectare block at 111 Bethells Road since 2006, ten years before it came up for sale after the passing of its longtime owner Henk van Steeden. Both Johns became inaugural trustees of Matuku Reserve Trust, successfully fundraising for the the acquisition of 111 Bethells Road to become Matuku Link. With Johns wide network in the community through his family connections, his and his wife’s GP practice and his many neighbours, almost all groups of visitors to Matuku Link will include at least one person he knows!