Ms Katharina Hecht

Email

Position: conservation volunteer & buyer (retail)

University/Institute/Company: Moehau Environment Group & Colville General Store

About

I moved to New Zealand in 2005 in order to learn and participate in conservation work and never left again. My background is in geobotany and ecology with strong interest in coastal areas. I wrote my final geobotany paper at the Free University Berlin under Prof Dr Frey about ecosystems and life for types in Saltmarshes of the Coast of Eiderstedt (Schleswig Holstein, Germany) an are belonging to the German Waddensea National Park area. I always loved coasts, the sea, water and the flora and fauna around it. I am living at a bay, which has a big silted area and is very tidal. Down the road at Colville (Westcoast of the northern Coromandel) and also at Waikawau Bay (East coast of the northern Coromandel) are a big estuarine areas. One with a strongly tidal shallow bay, the other with a long white beach. One a great roosting place for overwintering migratory birds (similar to the Kaiaua Cherries Plains) and the Colville Harbour Care more recently involved in its protection. The Waikawau Wetland is mainly surrounded by trapping by Moehau Environment Group (MEG), which I am a part of since 2005. With MEG I am much more involved in the land based predator control (kiwi habitat protection and weed control) but my whole heart is still totally hanging on the sea side of conservation and work, too.

I would love to hear more about the group and it’s members activities and possibly might be of help if anybody needs a hand in the Northern Coromandel. Happy to help collect data, if translations from German into English are needed, etc…