Rodney Bowater, chairman of the Bowater Motor Group, watering in the tree commemorating our relationship with the Brook Sanctuary. Click to enlarge.

Bowater Toyota, and the wider Bowater Motor Group, are very excited that the Brook Waimarama Sanctuary's "Get Behind the Fence" campaign is coming to fruition with the 14 kilometre fence almost completed. We have been keen supporters of the whole project for many years, and are always keen to get involved where ever and when ever we can.

In the last month Toyota New Zealand began a conversation about the importance of connecting with nature, and entered into a relationship with DoC (the Department of Conservation). Click here to read about the celebration that Toyota NZ held to celebrate it's 50 years in New Zealand. Part of that celebration was the sending of a small Rimu seedling to every dealership in the country, for us to plant somewhere significant.

We instantly thought of the Brook Sanctuary, and the opportunity to gift this seedling to the sanctuary. A conversation ensued and we sat down with Sanctuary Manager Hudson Dodd to discuss the opportunity to start something significant. As it transpired we couldn't gift the Rimu seedling to the Sanctuary as they have a strict bio-security blanket in place where only trees "born" in the sanctuary valley are able to go back into the valley. They have a very comprehensive seed raising operation in place, taking seeds from the trees in the sanctuary, raising them at the Sanctuary base by the dam, and replanting them as and where they need them.

Instead we discussed their future plans for the area, how they envisaged the community engagement to be generated, and their collective wishes as to beginning places of commemoration within or just outside on the Sanctuary grounds.

We saw the entire exercise as an opportunity to celebrate Toyota New Zealand's Believe Statements, which have become competely integrated into the Bowater Toyota "way". One of those statements is that by working together we can make a difference. So we listened. In the end we came up with a great plan that involved finding a perfect rock to inscribe a small part of our story in a way that would truly "stand the test of time".

This video is long (14 minutes) but it celebrates our journey on Saturday 30th April when some of the Bowater Toyota team, and 3 generations of the Bowater family, came together and started something special. A tree was placed in the ground that will outlast us all, and will be a significant food source for birds long into the future as they repopulate the Brook Valley. It is awesome!  

There is of course so much more to the story.