DOC fully committed to work on Great Barrier Island

The Department of Conservation remains fully committed to its frontline conservation work on Great Barrier Island and is not looking to cut spending or pull out all its staff.

DOC was responding to wildly inaccurate media claims that it was removing all its field staff from Great Barrier Island after a “cost-cutting” review.

Auckland Conservator Sean Goddard says a review of the administration structures for the island has identified savings of up to $300 000 a year by moving some office functions back to Warkworth and reducing staff numbers by six.

The review will leave 11 frontline staff based on the island and $300 000 saved will be redirected back into frontline work protecting threatened species and maintaining recreational facilities on Great Barrier.

“We are certainly not pulling out of Great Barrier – we are simply looking for savings in our administration costs and getting better economies of scale and re-directing that money back into our important field programmes on Great Barrier.”

“We are working with the affected staff to assess redeployment options and every effort will be made to avoid redundancies.”

ENDS

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