KEY POINTS:
Farmers are using less land but making more money under a conservation project to save river banks in Raglan.
The unexpected spinoff has come partly through lower stock losses once cattle were kept away from drains in the area.
It is one of several findings into a report into the benefits of conservation projects by WWF-New Zealand.
Executive director Chris Howe said the environmental organisation decided to investigate the impacts of the investments it made through its habitat protection fund.
"We knew there were many benefits and the projects were achieving what they set out to, but also wanted to see what else they could be contributing to society and the economy."
The organisation has released its report, Not Just Trees in the Ground, today at the start of Conservation Week which runs each year in the first week of August, co-ordinated by the Department of Conservation.
Mr Howe said the fund typically helped with labour costs, pest eradication, plant propagation and in buying equipment and materials and since 1993 had donated $1.3 million to a wide variety of projects.
The report focused on three projects part-funded by the organisation - Whaingaroa Harbour Care in Raglan, Te Rangatahi o te Whenua Trust in the eastern Bay of Plenty and the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust in Dunedin.
At Raglan, the once-devastated Whaingaroa Harbour barely supported three commercial fishers.
Today, after a 12-year replanting and water care programme, eight fishers reported healthy catches.
The harbour care project aimed to improve the water quality and ecology by fencing off and re-establishing native plants along the margins of the harbour and tributary streams, and restoring wetland systems.
Farmers were encouraged to fence and plant their riparian strips and to retire and plant slopes and gullies susceptible to erosion.
Ten years ago, Raglan locals said the beaches were covered in mud and the soil erosion and effluent runoff was so bad that signs were needed to warn people against swimming.
A 1990 survey found it took an average 18 hours to catch a single fish, but now one could be landed every two hours.
Local farmers were saving big money after fencing stock out of waterways and retiring riparian land.
They reported cost reductions in stock losses, vet bills, drain digging, and weed control. The land values, milk production and pasture quality had all improved.
Whaingaroa Harbour Care treasurer Fiona Edwards said there was a new culture of caring in Raglan with less litter and graffiti as youths wanted to look after the things they helped to clean up.
The project had employed 70 people, including convicted persons, on subsidised work schemes.
"We gave them life skills and a work ethic and taught them self-reliance. Some went on to get unsubsidised jobs in town."
The project won a police award for the contribution it had made to reducing the crime rate in the area.
In the South Island, the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust was replanting shore habitat of the world's rarest penguin and protecting birds from dogs and other predators in specially-purchased sanctuaries, which contributed to Dunedin's eco-tourism.
On the East Cape, the Te Rangatahi o te Whenua Trust had offered more than 200 at-risk young people an alternative education. It gave them the skills and support needed for self-employment as possum trappers, fencers or nursery managers.
It cost the Ministry of Education around $11,000 to provide alternative education for each pupil dismissed from mainstream schools.
In accepting such students from their rohe (iwi districts), the trust saved the ministry an estimated $133,000.
The report also demonstrated social and psychological benefits for volunteers including companionship, sense of achievement, self-esteem, richer life experience and new skills.
There was an increased social capital through the strengthening of community networks.
Mr Howe hoped the report would encourage more corporate and local government support for community conservation.
"I believe a quantum increase in support for community groups will deliver far more than the trees they plant or the weeds they pull out."
Mr Howe said in some cases the WWF money was the first given to struggling groups providing them the leverage to gain further support.
"You can get a huge number of benefits from a small amount of money."
