The Fringe, September 2020

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Ark in the Park appoints new programme manager It’s not ideal to start a new role that requires intensive fieldwork and community interaction, only for a level three lockdown to be enforced two weeks later.

But Samantha Lincoln, Ark in the Park’s newly appointed programme manager, is taking it all in her stride. After moving up to Waitākere from Palmerston North, Samantha stepped into the role in late July, officially replacing outgoing manager Gillian Wadams as the head of West Auckland’s acclaimed conservation project.

Her first three weeks were spent getting her head around the new role, figuring our her priorities and the state of conservation in the Ark. As of mid-August, she’d been doing all of this from her home office in Titirangi due to level three restrictions. However, she’s spent enough time out in the bush to know how to work well in isolation.

“I spent the last two years working with DOC doing vegetation surveys,” she says. “So I covered the whole of the North Island and some of the South, usually working for 15 days straight running around the forest or getting thrown in there on a helicopter.

“It was amazing but you have the occasional day when you miss a shower or talking to someone other than your three team mates.”

In between finishing her masters in Biosecurity and Conservation at the University of Auckland in 2016, she’s undertaken gecko monitoring, pest plant control and spent a summer on Rakiura/Stewart Island looking after the New Zealand southern dotterel.

“Unlike their northern cousins, those guys don’t live on beaches, but on the mountain tops. We learned that the hard way once.

“I discovered a lot of new tree names. And I think one my favourite things I’ve ever seen was working in Fiordland and seeing cloud waterfalls.”

Samantha speaks with a curious North American accent, courtesy of a stint living in Canada. However, she was born on the North Island’s East Coast and is of Ngāti Porou descent. Of all the many places she’s lived and worked in New Zealand, her favourite place is Anaura Bay on the East Coast, the home of her family marae.

So, notwithstanding any delays or disruptions from Covid-19, what has she got on the agenda for Ark in the Park?

“A lot of hand over,” she says. “I’ve been looking at what has been completed, the impact that Covid

lockdown has had on the project and the amount of field work the team have been able to get done.

“The best thing about this job is getting to put all my university knowledge together with all of the practical field work experience that I have.”

During the initial level four and level three lockdown earlier this year, restrictions on volunteer conservation work meant very little fieldwork took place. However, with breeding season approaching Samantha says the Ark team has plenty to do once they’re able to get back in the bush.

“They’re an amazing team and the outgoing project manager has been incredibly supportive,” she says.

“We’ll be monitoring the kōkako in the lead up to breeding season. As well as learning the job and the volunteers’ names, I’ve also got a big family of kōkako to meet and greet and I have to learn who nested with who last year, and who’s nesting with who this year, and the drama going on with that.”

Other than pest control and bird monitoring, Samantha’s also aware than any work will have to factor in the on-going protection of vulnerable kauri from kauri dieback disease.

“We’ve got some special and not yet infected kauri ecosystems, but we do have some areas where it’s just heart breaking watching the trees fall apart.

“But I’ve got to make sure I learn everything I can first.

I want to make sure that what we do at the Ark isn’t just limited to the Ark but focusing on things like Predator Free 2050 and working with other conservation groups so we have landscape-scale suppressions. Just one back yard is not enough, we need a nationwide effort.”

– Mick Andrew

Samantha Lincoln: “Just one backyard is not enough, we need a nationwide effort.”

For more information about Ark in the Park, and to get involved in this volunteer-staffed project visit https:// arkinthepark.org.nz/.

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The Fringe SEPTEMBER 2020

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