Kia Ora!
Welcome to Earthwise Valley, a New Zealand based, charitable, volunteer run, sustainable living project.
Earthwise Valley is based in , a rare haven for nature with rainforest running continuously from mountain top all the way down to the Pacific ocean. has a rich human and ecological history. Volcanic cliffs rise abruptly from the Pacific with many caves and sea arches. Nearby white sandy beaches are breeding grounds for migratory seabirds, and seals & whales frequent the coastline.
We believe that our Earth is not a commodity, but our community. We work to encourage our global community to increase sustainability and participate in activities that restore native forest ecology.
We’re taking direct action to create an ecologically sound Centre for Sustainable Living. This includes revitalising degraded farmland, growing and planting trees, controlling animal pests and weeds, using organic and permacultural techniques, and native bush research. The Valley relies on your support - we need your donations, loans, advice, and physical labour to make a difference.
Our volunteer programme suits people interested in learning about sustainable living, enjoying the outdoors, and living a saner, richer and simpler life. Take part as a residential volunteer and you'll experience New Zealand in a very special way while making a real contribution to Nature.
Our volunteer programmes include plenty of free time for personal growth and a time-proven programme of recreation trips run continuously throughout the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula. Activities include seakayaking, hiking (tramping) and camping, horse-riding, and swimming. Recreation also involves gentler activities like reading, board games, yoga, meditation, art and music.
We know the terrain and we run trips to choose the best weather and take in those extra places and experiences - hot pools, alpine peaks, Pacific beaches, and ancient forests. From kiwi birds to tuatara, butterflies to penguins, blue fungi to green lizards, little glow-worms to giant kauri trees you'll see Nature though new eyes with us.
Earthwise Valley provides opportunities for people to step out of the mainstream world and explore ways of living sustainably, to lighten our ecological footprint - a way for travellers to give something back to Nature, while still experiencing some of the best adventures and sharing life with locals. Our efforts to live more sustainably include permacultural food production - with organic gardens and fruit trees, experimenting with earth building techniques, timber plantations, and we are working towards adopting renewable energy - windmills, solar panels and micro-hydro generation.
In addition, staff and volunteers undertake environmental service work - planting trees, ecological surveys and pest trapping on contract, as a way to help fund the Valley and make a further gift to surrounding environs.
Find out how you can get involved by exploring our website, or jump straight to our residential volunteer programmes.
Latest News
Summer 2010 has been eventful at Earthwise Valley! posted on the 10th April
Our 2010 Summer Volunteer Programme has been AWESOME, with a great group of volunteers achieving a large number of projects and enjoying some super fun recreation trips.
First-hand perspectives - nowadays it seems everyone is traveling with a laptop.. and many volunteers are keeping a blog and/or uploading photo collections. So we've created a created a collective website linking to their stories:
http://earthwisevalley.blogspot.com/
In this news item, we've included links to their photographs & blogs (below)
Work has been done in the Valley and at our New Volunteers House.
Projects have included:
- building an earth-oven - great for pizzas and baking cob bread - story by Bexie
- building composting toilets
- rescuing and replanting trees
- creating a wood-fired non electrical spa-pool
- making large new gardens
- planting flax, mainly alongside the river in the erosion zone
- bashing weeds - esp. wooly nightshade and wild ginger
Our two biggest trips this year were - seakayaking at Lake Waikaremoana ( See Dave's PHOTOS ) & hiking + climbing Mt Ngaruhoe & Mt Ruapehu on the Volcanic Plateau. ( See Nicole's PHOTOS).
Other trips have included:
- whitewater-rafting
- seakayaking - including a trip to visit nesting gannets
- surfing instruction
- horse-riding
- and lots of forest walks
And we've put several videos up on YouTube!
IMPORTANTLY, a major hurdle has been successfully overcome - TCDC have granted resource consent to subdivide and create the new valley property - a process that has taken 2 years - read more…
We're looking forward to Winter 2010!
Tuateawa has been DRY. It hasn't rained in any decent volume since the flood of November 2009. Consequently the ground is still rock-hard and so we're now looking forward to the Winter programme to plant a lot of trees. We already have over 200 Tarata (Lemonwood) being looked after by Thames supporters Kevin and Annie, and expect to buy more acacias and some fruittrees too. Hopefully we'll also get another few hundred flax planted… and in time these will attract and feed birds, which will disperse more plant seeds.
Two volunteers from this Summer, Dave and Nicole are returning this Winter to organise further projects. Bring yer gumboots folks!
