Trees That Count and Air New Zealand have joined forces to support native tree-planting projects across Aotearoa, through the airline’s FlyNeutral programme and Whakatipu Reforestation Trust is the first to benefit.

FlyNeutral works by calculating your share of your flight’s carbon emissions. Then it matches those emissions with carbon credits from certified international projects to offset them.  And by offsetting your carbon, you’re helping to grow Aotearoa.

“It’s amazing to see businesses like Air New Zealand go above and beyond to help customers support biodiversity in our own big backyard, alongside offsetting carbon,” says Melanie Seyfort, Head of Partnerships at Trees That Count.

The funds Air New Zealand contributes from FlyNeutral will go to supporting many amazing local regeneration projects all around the motu (country).

“You’ll see the impact of your FlyNeutral contributions grow each month, as Air New Zealand’s customers add more native trees to the total funded—and you’ll be able to see exactly where the native trees are being planted and cared for,” explains Melanie.

The first project supported with funds from FlyNeutral will be the Whakatipu Reforestation Trust, an incredible community group dedicated to protecting and restoring the native biodiversity of the area through revegetation projects, collaboration, education and advocacy.

Trees That Count has been supporting the work of the Trust since 2017, enabling the planting of more than 13,000 native trees so far. The Reforestation Trust maintains more than 25 planting sites around the Whakatipu Basin, with a large cohort of keen volunteers and also local school involvement through their nursery education programme.

The work of the Whakatipu Reforestation Trust has been transformational for the Queenstown area, and thousands more native trees funded by the Trees That Count and FlyNeutral partnership will help continue the journey.