Mountains To Sea Conservation Trust (MTSCT) - Nga Maunga ki te Moana
The Northland-based Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust was established in 2002, as a charitable umbrella and support organisation for the Experiencing Marine Reserves (EMR) marine education and Whitebait Connection (WBC) freshwater education programmes. These are both leading models in education for sustainability in New Zealand and now both available nationally.
The Trust sees education as a vital part of society and central to all environmental restoration. Our work involves providing dynamic experiential education programmes that engage schools and communities in conservation and the pursuit of sustainability.
See Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust website. Check out our 2020 annual report
The late Dr Roger Grace

Our Trustees...
Vince Kerr

Olivier (Olly) Ball
Olly is a senior tutor at NorthTec Whangarei, and teaches subjects ranging from ecology to conservation to the dreaded statistics. Olly's interest in ecology and conservation was sparked when, as a child growing up in London, I found out that I was never going to be able to see such wonderful creatures as moa, huia and dodo, as every last one had been exterminated by humans, directly or indirectly. After leaving school in England, he followed the zoological pathway, completing a BSc Hons at the University of Canterbury (NZ), majoring in ecology and invertebrate physiology. For his PhD at Waikato University, his studies focused on biological control of pastoral insect pests using endophytic fungi of grasses. After post-doctoral studies on endophytic fungi at the University of Tennessee, and several years as a research scientist with AgResearch at Ruakura and Grasslands, he was able to rekindle my passion for plants, animals and their conservation when he took up his current post at NorthTec. Since his arrival at NorthTec, he has participate in several research projects, including studies on freshwater invertebrate communities of northern Northland dune lakes. Olly is happy to support the amazing work of the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust here in Northland.
Hilton Leith

Manuel Springford
Manuel is committed to Te Reo and surrounds himself with the language in his day-to-day activities, but it was a different story as a youngster - he didn't even know his grandfather could speak Māori. His initial reason to learn the language was to converse with him, so started his reo journey in 2009. He started Māori Mondays in May 2009 after hearing about Mahuru Māori, another Māori language initiative that encourages people to speak Maori in September. His commitment to the language has inspired many in his community to give Te Reo a go. Manuel came onboard the trust 4 years ago as an advisor and has stayed the course and has now taken on the role of the Chair! Brings so much mana to the Trust and empowers our team to be brave and develop their use of Te Reo and navigating into Te Ao Maori.
Geoff Buttirini
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Matt Keene
Matt is born and bred in Whangārei. He has a bachelor of management studies from Waikato University and is a partner in a software development company. Matt is on several not for profit boards that focus on education, the arts and skills development for young people. He has many years of experience in the development and implementation
of strategic planning for not for profits. Matt has been on many EMR school trips with his 3 daughters and has seen first hand how important and effective it is to make the education of tamariki about the environment and ecology an adventure and fun.
Eden Hakaraia - Education Portfolio
Eden has been a teacher for the past 15 years and her passions are Science and Environmental Education hence her new job with Enviroschools, Northland Regional Council. She has been an Enviroschool facilitator since 2017. Eden is working with 40 schools in Northland promoting Education for Sustainability. In 2012. Eden had a Science Fellowship with Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust and was able to work alongside Experiencing Marine Reserves and Whitebait Connection. In 2015, she was awarded a Science Alumni award for the work she had been doing with science with a huge emphasis on Environmental Education.
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Jean-Louis - Funding portfolio
Jean-Louis grew up in France at the onset of the digital age and found in technology the vehicle to quickly convert his ideas into new ways of working that transformed our world. His incessant curiosity led him to pioneer many technologies that we now take for granted: online banking, caller ID,
internet access, global systems, B2B, digital trading, video conferencing, online advertising, and eHealth. Jean-Louis spent the last few decades pursuing his passion of creating digital innovations for good, accelerating the mission of the largest international nonprofits.
Jean-Louis now serves NetHope as Chief Innovation Officer leading The Center of the Digital Nonprofit, a social sector accelerator and the center of
excellence for digital transformation in nonprofits. He resides virtually on the Internet @jecochard and physically in New Zealand where he
lives sustainably with his wife and daughters, blending roles of husband, dad and visionary.
Leadership - Poutokomanawa
Samara Nicholas - MNZM

Kim Jones

Check out our latest srategy and Theory of Change documents
Trust Documents: