Being unable to muster kiwi won't hinder a Taranaki farmer's efforts to grow the population of the threatened native bird in the province's remote backcountry.

Inglewood's Karen Schumacher chairs the East Taranaki Environment Trust (ETET) whose kiwi habitat at Purangi, east of Inglewood, has become a national stronghold for North Island western brown kiwi.

The breed's numbers are growing at Purangi even as the kiwi population declines nationally at a rate of 2 per cent a year.

SUE O'DOWD/FAIRFAX NZ Karen Schumacher with some of her red devons.

"Kiwi are part of our community, so we're providing a place for them to thrive, alongside our farmland and forestry, a safe environment for them to breed and grow, " Schumacher said.

She and husband Bob, who own a dairy farm near Inglewood, established ETET in 2005 after discovering kiwi on their 197-hectare run-off at Purangi. Their property has 144ha of regenerating and mature native bush, half of which is protected by a QE11 covenant, and 35ha of forestry on hillcountry. Their red devon cattle, which they began breeding in 2005, flourish on Purangi's marginal unimproved hills.

Their 15 breeding cows now have calves at foot, after calving at Purangi in autumn.

"I like their ability to fit our landscape at Purangi," said Karen Schumacher as she noted New Zealand was losing 10 kiwi a day when the couple started breeding red devon.

"So when we discovered kiwi at Purangi, we had to walk the talk. Kiwi are an indicator species. If they are doing well, then so are other native species."

With a proven environmental track record, the couple were among the first in Taranaki to complete a riparian protection programme on their 100-hectare (87ha effective) dairy farm. They fenced and planted more than 12 kilometres of streambank in the Ngatoro River catchment just below Egmont National Park in the 1990s and received a Taranaki Regional Council environmental award for that work in 2000.

Karen Schumacher was a member of the Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board from 2003-2008 and chaired it in the latter three years of her appointment.

Back at Purangi, owners of surrounding properties have joined ETET's predator control programme which now covers 13,000ha of public and private land and protects kiwi from possums, weasels, ferrets, stoats, rats, hedgehogs, feral cats and feral goats.

Twenty per cent of the project area at Purangi is farmland, 6 per cent is exotic forest, and 74 per cent is indigenous bush that includes podocarp, rimu, nikau, orchids, beech, manuka/kanuka and kohekohe. Fauna includes Western North Island brown kiwi, New Zealand falcon, rifleman, North Island robin, fernbird, tui, kereru, bellbird, whitehead, grey warbler, tomtit and bats. The trust is now working towards re-introducing kokako, absent from the province since the early 1980s.

One of New Zealand's largest volunteer environment schemes, ETET's project is a model for conservation on private and public land. The trust works with district, regional and central government, 38 landowners, iwi and community groups and provides tourism and employment in Taranaki.

A public walkway high above the upper Waitara River showcases the project.

ETET wants to grow Purangi's wild kiwi population to 1000 pairs by 2020 from what statistical modelling estimated was 500 pairs in 2012. Helping it towards that goal are a commitment to best environmental practice and adoption of new trap resetting technology to keep predator numbers low.

Twelve contractors use both trapping - the trust has 360 re-setting possum traps and 270 re-setting rat traps - and toxins to manage the predator control programme in the rugged Purangi terrain.

Kiwi with transmitters give the trust a snapshot of breeding at Purangi.

"Eggs are being hatched and the trapping programme is working," Karen Schumacher said.

"Kiwi are dispersing beyond the pest control boundaries and are getting to adulthood and breeding. We're farming kiwi. The number is growing - but we can't run them through a set of yards and count them," she said.

As resources allow, predators will be trapped in the area beyond the project's boundaries. Eventually, the project will connect with other community initiatives to create what the trust is calling a "kiwi connector" from SH3 to the Forgotten Highway of SH43 and ultimately from the North Taranaki coast across country to the Whanganui River's upper reaches.

Schumacher said the June floods hit the project hard, flooding 400 traps and filling them with silt. "So we've been cleaning, repairing and reconditioning them. Most of this work has been done by volunteers - and they've spent hundreds of hours on it."

Many bush tracks were destroyed and have to be cleared.

"We can't use quad bikes on some of the tracks to get access to the traps. So there's still a huge amount of work to do on the traps when we can get to them."

Volunteers, including Urenui Lions Club members, have been hand-chipping fallen trees to clear tracks because the trust can't afford a digger operated by a person trained to work in the harsh terrain.

Stoat activity is approaching the seasonal peak. "So we've been working frantically to get everything operational," she said as she appealed for more volunteers to support the trust's work.

The trust puts transmitters on birds raised from eggs laid at Purangi and incubated at Rotorua's Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park for release when they weigh a kilogram. When those birds were checked this spring, their abandoned eggs were found in burrows that were dripping wet.

"So the June floods had a huge impact on kiwi breeding this year."

Using telemetry in September, Bob Schumacher found kiwi with transmitters in new, north-facing, dry, warm burrows for their second of up to three incubations of the season. Three eggs recovered from burrows in September are being incubated at Rotorua.

Young Kotikara, released at Purangi just before the flood, had lost weight, and was only 750 grams.

However, fending for himself, he has since regained 150g and is now thriving. Other kiwi with transmitters include males Baccy, Nahe, Trev, and Titoko which have formed breeding pairs with partners. Baccy's young sons are Beaudy, Kotikara and Murf and Trev is the father of young Terry.

Signs of kiwi, like footprints, droppings and probe holes in the soil are seen increasingly. Not long ago a a kiwi chick raised its head, looked at a contractor checking traps and went back to sleep as the intruder tip-toed away.

"It's great to have birds with transmitters and they're sponsored."

North Taranaki Young Farmers have adopted one kiwi and also undertake fundraising and participate in working bees.

Financing the project continues to be a challenge, but Schumacher expects a Taranaki Electricity Trust annual grant of $83,000 for the next three years will provide leverage for more funding. It costs the trust $25 a year to protect a hectare of bush with traps and a monthly donation of $25 provides a place for a pair of kiwi to thrive.

Trust patron is former Prime Minister Jim Bolger who actively supports their fundraising.

After 10 years as a trustee, Bob Schumacher has decided instead to focus on field work at Purangi, where he checks traps and works on tracks most days. "I'm outside, it's physical, it stops old-age spread and I'm doing some good as well. It's a lot more fun than farming.

"I can afford to do this work, because we still have the (dairy) farm (now leased, except for 4ha) behind us."

New Plymouth district councillor Roy Weaver replaces him as trustee. "He and wife Annette both have a passion for the environment and for birds," Karen Schumacher said.

"He's been working with us for 12 months. It was a natural fit for him to slot in as a trustee and let Bob do the field work. We fit in with his philosophy."

The other trustees are QE11 National Trust representative Neil Phillips, of New Plymouth, Stratford solicitor Philip Armitstead and former QE11 National Trust director, Purangi landowner and ecologist Maggie Bayfield QSM.