Michelle Impey

Canadian for kiwi

She’s laughing, but she’s serious too. Michelle Impey is being interviewed at Rotorua’s Rainbow Springs – a tourist attraction that depends on the very bird the executive director of conservation group Kiwis for kiwi is tasked with bringing back from the brink.

It’s a conversation that stretches from Canada, via Silicon Valley, to the battle to save New Zealand’s iconic bird, and it touches upon royal visits, pottery and conservation fatigue.

But she has just one request before we part. It’s about the headline.

It’s one she says she’s seen before, albeit about someone else involved in kiwi conservation, and one she hopes she won’t see again: ‘‘I’ve loved thousands of kiwi chicks.’’

The story of how a Canadian came to be one of the key players in kiwi conservation began back in 2002, as the much-hyped ‘‘dotcom’’ bubble was beginning to burst in California’s Silicon Valley.

The online bookstore Impey was working for was bought out and she decided to use her redundancy package, and her suddenly free time, to visit her brother, who had settled in New Zealand.

‘‘Classic story. Met a Kiwi guy, broke up with Kiwi guy and decided I liked the country more than him so decided to stay.’’

Impey says she tells people she’s ‘‘16 years into her 12-month holiday’’.

That initial free time also allowed Impey to pursue her love of pottery – she did not know it then but it proved to be the gateway to her current role.

She says her marketing experience made her want to link her pottery to a good cause, ‘‘one dollar from each piece goes to that cause’’.

That took her to Kiwis for kiwi’s earlier incarnation, Kiwi Trust. She picked up the phone and found, amazingly, that the trust’s then executive director, Kieron Goodwin, was a fellow Canadian. He liked the idea and a working relationship began, a move that Impey says gave her a foot in the door.

Three years later, with Goodwin stepping down, ‘‘he shoulder-tapped me for the role’’.

It’s a position that has seen Impey have to draw on all her business and marketing nous.

She describes Kiwis for kiwi as an umbrella group, linking grassroots kiwi conservation efforts with the Department of Conservation, government ministers and larger-scale projects.

‘‘Raise money, get it to the people on the ground doing the good work’’ is one way she sums up the organisation. ‘‘But it has grown to more than that. That is at our core, but how can we use them [conservation groups] more strategically to drive a national piece of work?’’

She says she’s cautiously optimistic about the future of the much-loved bird.

But don’t think there isn’t more work to be done. ‘‘The good news is we started in time so there’s enough genetic diversity, enough to work with so we can do this and turn it around,’’ she says. ‘‘I’m under no illusion we’re done and dusted but we have a clear way forward and we have the tools to do it and the will of the people on the ground.’’

Impey says it’s sometimes hard to get people to engage with conservation of any kind as they often switch off with what she describes as a ‘‘fatigue’’.

She reels off familiar kiwi stories – the 1000th, or the 2000th chick born, the one with odd-shaped markings, the competitions to name kiwi destined for release.

Sometimes, though, a big awareness opportunity comes along, like last October when Impey received a phone call from brewing giant Heineken. The company, one of Kiwis for kiwi’s sponsors, was calling to tell Impey that two visitors were on the way to Rotorua, and might want to see some kiwi. The visitors were the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan.

Impey says she had to maintain silence about the impending visit and the work ahead of it with the Department of Internal Affairs. Her role – she got to show the royal couple inside the kiwi chick incubation room – created a lot of work.

But it was worth it, she says. ‘‘It’s lovely to say you’ve met a royal, but it’s not about my personal Instagram page. It’s about the publicity that comes with them, that will strengthen the campaigning, continued support and more money for kiwi.’’

She describes them as warm, genuine and, more than once, simply as lovely. ‘‘They asked all the logical questions for someone interested in kiwis, and made a few jokes.’’

A measure of their character was when she asked the couple how they should be addressed. She says their ‘‘team’’ had told her it’s duke and duchess, or sir and ma’am. ‘‘It feels a little weird to call someone younger than me ma’am or sir, so I asked and they just said call us Meghan and Harry.’’

She also says the duchess was particularly excited to meet a kiwi chick, as her mother had worked as a flight attendant and gifted the young Meghan a stuffed kiwi toy as a child.

Impey clearly knows the value of the eyes the royal couple can bring to work such as theirs, but she’s equally pragmatic about the future. ‘‘It’s never-ending work and it’s continous, and it’s quite challenging to keep that story fresh and keep it alive.’’

It’s work she’s committed to, however, and although she’ll ‘‘always be Canadian’’, New Zealand is home now. ‘‘I have a Kiwi partner who’s Ma¯ ori now,’’ she laughs. ‘‘I’ve gone full indigenous. It’s home.’’

‘‘It’s neverending work and it’s continous, and it’s quite challenging to keep that story fresh and keep it alive.’’