Our Mission / The one percent commitment
Make nature’s care
an enduring commitment.
Our mission is to establish dependable annual funding for the stewardship of Aotearoa New Zealand’s natural systems — grounded in evidence, shared responsibility and local legitimacy.
The ambition is NZ$1 billion each year. The work is to build the agreements, institutions and accountability that can make that ambition durable.
Understand the 1% mission ↓Why annual stewardship?
Care must continue
after the project ends.
Pest management, weed control, monitoring and the coordination of local stewardship require continuity. Short funding cycles can leave the people doing this work uncertain about what comes next.
We want ongoing care to become a planned commitment: with agreed responsibilities, multi-year funding and the capacity to adapt as ecosystems and community priorities change.
That means making the cost of maintaining natural systems visible alongside the benefits they provide.
The ambition / A maintenance lens
What does one percent mean?
Circa NZ$1bn a year for stewardship.
New Zealand’s ecosystem services have an estimated value of circa NZ$100 billion a year. Our 1% mission is to mobilise circa NZ$1 billion annually to help maintain the natural systems that sustain those benefits.
The comparison gives the ambition a sense of proportion. It opens a practical question: how can those who depend on nature help fund its ongoing care?
The one percent framing is indicative. It is not a uniform levy, a percentage of GDP, or a charge on every beneficiary. Ecosystem-service value is not collectable revenue.
NZ$1 billion is a mobilisation target, not funds already raised or an independently assured national funding requirement. Current maintenance modelling is a partial baseline; it does not cover all restoration needs. Catchment scope, costs and existing funding must be assessed before additional contributions are agreed.
Examine the evidence and assumptions →The principles
How responsibility becomes credible.
Start with place and authority.
Develop stewardship priorities with catchment communities, iwi and hapū, landholders and existing stewards. Local knowledge, rights and legitimate governance must shape the approach.
Match contributions to context.
Consider ecosystem dependency, benefits received, exposure and capacity to contribute. Recognise existing stewardship and avoid counting the same responsibility twice.
Fund agreed work.
Connect contributions to a defined programme, credible costs and clear delivery responsibilities. Distinguish maintenance, restoration and wider ambitions so partners understand what their support enables.
Make commitments traceable.
Separate pledges from committed funding, committed funding from disbursements, and activities from ecological outcomes. Report progress against an agreed baseline and appropriate assurance.
The path to delivery
Earn confidence before scaling.
The proposed sequence is to test the approach in practice, learn with partners and expand as evidence and institutional capacity develop.
01 / Establish
Define the foundation.
Agree the place, stewardship scope, governance and baseline. Document current activity and funding before identifying what additional support is needed.
02 / Demonstrate
Test the commitments.
Work with prospective beneficiaries and funding partners on contribution arrangements, delivery plans and reporting. Use practical experience to refine the model.
03 / Extend
Build on what works.
Share methods and learning across catchments while retaining local decision-making. Broaden participation when delivery and accountability can support it.
Gaia Vista is the framework under development to support this approach. Its current model maps 96 catchments, rounded to 100 in our national mission framing.
See how Gaia Vista supports delivery →Accountability / Development stage
Judge the mission by commitments
and outcomes.
Our ambition must be distinguishable from our progress. A credible stewardship system needs to show where money comes from, what it funds and what changes as a result.
As agreements develop, reporting should make those distinctions clear.
| Measure | Current public position |
|---|---|
| Annual mobilisation ambition | NZ$1 billion per year |
| Framework | Gaia Vista under development |
| Committed funding and disbursements | No verified aggregate published here |
| Delivery and ecological outcomes | To be reported against agreed baselines and assurance |
Help shape the commitment
Bring a stewardship challenge
we can work on together.
We welcome partners who can help test a catchment approach, strengthen the evidence or develop enduring funding arrangements.
Discuss a partnership ↗Explore the research →