Tiritiri Matangi Island is north of Rangitoto in the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / NZPA
Tiritiri Matangi Island is north of Rangitoto in the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / NZPA
If you have a spare 2640 hours to volunteer in a hut on an uninhabited Auckland island this summer then the hihi bird needs you.
That's the pitch of the Department of Conservation volunteer role for a volunteer to work 110 days on Tiritiri Matangi Island. The task involves protecting the threatened hihi during its breeding season.
The unpaid work is broken into 11 stints of 10 days. The job description specifies: "Ideally you will be able to commit to all of the below stints as it takes time to build skills and you will gain much more from the experience."
The successful applicant will have to provide their own food, and live in a bunkhouse sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities with the public.
They will need their own sleeping bag, pillow slip, binoculars, and hiking gear suited to "hot weather, cold weather, wind, rain, and mud".
But don't think the role is devoid of perks because ferry service between downtown Auckland and Tiritiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf will be provided free of charge.
A male hihi darts, which the Department of Conservation wants to protect. Photo / fie.
Dr John Ewen has managed the DOC hihi conservation project on Tiri since 2007 and says for the last five years he has had international volunteers who have each individually filled the 110 day volunteer commitment.
This year, he says "ideally" a Kiwi will fill the role.
"For sure I absolutely recognise it's a massive commitment for somebody and it's up to their judgment whether they are able to give it," Ewen said.
"All I can do is try to reflect back to the positive outcomes from doing it.
"That level of investment is really targeted at someone who is young and who wants to develop skills and become competitive to get into these very difficult-to-find jobs and a career path in conservation biology.
"That's the balance. I completely understand it and I don't even know if we'll find somebody who is able to do it. If we can, the rewards and the opportunity are huge."
In the 2017/18 financial year DOC utilised 16,737 volunteers.
Auckland University Associate Professor of ecology Bruce Burns says the "ideal" stint of 110 days volunteer work is "significantly larger than what people are doing elsewhere".
"Wow, is that a volunteer position?" Burns asked, on hearing a description of the role.
"For one person it does seem like a significant amount of volunteering hours to provide.
Burns did however understand the context for such a position.
"We've had no increases in DOC funding for a very long period of time, gradually running it down to its current level," he said.
"Up until the current government there had been a relentless reduction in real funding over at least a decade. A long-term chronic underfunding of DOC has been going on for a long time."
Volunteering Auckland GM Cheryll Martin said there was "absolutely a fine line" between exploitation and fair opportunities in the volunteer sector.
Martin said the crucial word of "ideally" in the position description outline of the hihi conservation time expectations meant it was not necessarily exploitative.
"If it said 'you must' then we would question it because of the time, but because it says 'ideally' then there is some choice there and volunteering is about choice. You can't dictate too much what a person is willing to do."
For his part, Dr Ewen frankly acknowledged the demands of the role, but stressed they should be viewed in light of the rewards.
"I understand some of the concerns behind all this and I fully appreciate the commitment a volunteer gives but I just want to at least express there is some positive as well," he said.
"It's a hard balance to achieve and I'm very sensitive to it. But equally the positives of it are big, not only for hihi but for those people who do commit the time.
"Just looking at the track record of the people who have worked with me on the hihi project, it's led to without fail successful conservation careers.
"So, a lot of commitment, but a big reward in a space which is not an easy path to carve out a living."
