Congratulations to Nate Wilbourne, winner of our Tidy Kiwi Volunteer of the Month for May 2022

Congratulations to Nate Wilbourne, winner of our Tidy Kiwi Volunteer of the Month for May.

Nate is an impressive teenager doing big things for the environment in Nelson. He’s worked his way up to become a prominent youth leader, having launched the Forest and Bird youth branch in Nelson and taking on the youth representative role on the Nelson Tasman Climate Forum leadership team.

Growing up in Brightwater, Tasman, he fell in love with nature at school during a tree-planting, aged 8. It spurred him to get out in nature more and to focus on conservation, and by age 11 he had gotten into pest trapping — even emailing his local councils to help with trapping in his local reserves.

He signed up for Forest & Bird Youth in October 2021 as a 13-year-old environmentalist, in doing so becoming their youngest member and hub coordinator. He subsequently created the Nelson-Tasman hub, recruiting a team of passionate youth (aged 14 – 25) to be a part of his leadership team. He has also recently taken over the role of Under 25 youth representative on the leadership committee of the Nelson-Tasman Climate Forum. Did we mention that Nate’s aged just 14?!

Along with helping shape the environmental future of his region, Nate remains passionately hands-on too, spending nearly every weekend volunteering his time and energy planting literally thousands of trees and organising dozens of regular litter clean ups. He’s also helped with the release and feeding of 50 Pakaha/Fluttering Shearwaters into the Cape Sanctuary as well as the release of 20 Kākāriki Karaka in the Brook Sanctuary.

Nate is a genuine young man and a truly great example of how one young person, through both leadership and by getting out there, can really make a difference in the world.

Congratulations Nate! As this month’s Tidy Kiwi Volunteer of the Month, Nate will receive a Keep New Zealand Beautiful merchandise pack and a Resene paint voucher – along with being automatically nominated for the Tidy Kiwi Award at our next Beautiful Awards! Plus, thanks to Stand Desk we have four desks to give away this year to our Tidy Kiwi Volunteer of the Month winners – we’ll draw a winner for this every three months.

Nominate a Tidy Kiwi here.