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Pupu Rangi Nature Sanctuary
Volunteer Confidentiality Agreement - Short-Stay Volunteers
1. Please read this - it is short, and it matters
This is an agreement between you and Casa Lumaca Limited, a company registered in New Zealand, trading as Pupu Rangi Nature Sanctuary. You accept it by ticking the confirmation box when you book your stay.
While you are here you will learn things that could put the animals at risk if they get out: where they nest, where they feed, where our traps are. We are not worried about you meaning any harm. Almost nothing that leaks out of a place like this is leaked deliberately - it goes out in a photo caption, a location tag, or an offhand comment to someone met at a hostel.
2. Why it matters here specifically
- Kauri snails are collected illegally. There is a real market for them. Anyone who knows where a population is can go and take them.
- Nesting and roosting birds are vulnerable to disturbance. Repeated visits to a known nest can cause it to fail.
- Our trap and bait station network only works if it is left alone. Knowing where the traps are is enough to interfere with them.
- Kauri dieback spreads on footwear and equipment. Uncontrolled movement between known sites spreads it.
- We also hold information that belongs to other people - the Department of Conservation, iwi and hapū, our neighbours, and university research partners. That is not ours to pass on.
3. What you agree to keep to yourself
You agree not to share, post, publish or pass on to anyone outside the Sanctuary:
- The location of any nest, burrow, roost, territory, kauri snail population, trap, bait station, tracking tunnel, camera, acoustic recorder or monitoring station - whether as coordinates, a map, a track name, a description, or a photograph from which it could be worked out.
- Numbers - how many of any species there are, counts, survey results, catch figures.
- Identifying details of individual animals, including band numbers, transmitter identifiers and radio frequencies.
- Anything told to you in confidence about our work, our arrangements with others, or our operations.
- Anything you have been asked specifically to keep confidential while you are here.
4. Photographs and social media
We want you to take photos and enjoy sharing your time here. These are the limits.
- Turn location services off for your camera while you are on site, or remove the location data from any photo before you post it.
- Do not tag a location more precise than “Northland, New Zealand”.
- Do not post photos showing a nest, a burrow, a roost, or any trap, bait station, camera or recorder.
- Do not post photos containing signage, track markers, distinctive landmarks or background features that would let someone identify a specific spot.
- Ask us first before posting anything showing a protected species being handled.
- If we ask you to take something down or edit it, please just do it, without needing a discussion. This applies after you leave as well.
5. What you are free to share
Plenty. You can talk about volunteering here, what the work involved, what you learned, and what it was like. You can post photos of the forest, of yourself and of the people you worked with. You can say you worked with kiwi and with kauri snails. You can use any of this on a CV, on LinkedIn or in an application. The restriction is on specific locations, specific numbers and specific animals - not on the experience.
6. After you leave
6.1 These obligations do not end when your stay does. For information generally they continue for five years.
6.2 For the location of nests, burrows, roosts, kauri snail populations and our trapping and monitoring equipment, they continue indefinitely. The risk to those places does not fade with time.
6.3 Before you leave, please:
- delete any waypoints or track logs recorded on your phone or GPS;
- uninstall the Avenza Maps app, and delete any of our maps you downloaded, including any copies in your Downloads folder; and
- return anything of ours that you are holding, including VHF radios, GPS units, first aid kits, working gloves and pens, and paper maps, however damaged they are.
7. Looking after the land
The sanctuary is protected by a Queen Elizabeth II National Trust open space covenant, registered on the title to the land. The covenant sets strict rules about what can happen here, and we are responsible for making sure that everyone we bring onto the land keeps to them. So while you are here:
- Follow our instructions for protecting the forest, including cleaning your boots and gear the way we show you, so that weeds and kauri dieback are not carried in.
- Do not cut, damage or remove any plant, or take anything away from the forest (plants, seeds, animals, snail shells, soil or rocks), except as part of work we have asked you to do.
- Do not bring any plant, seed, cutting or animal onto the property.
- Stay on our tracks unless we have asked you to go off them, and do not make new tracks or routes.
- Do not light a fire in the forest, and leave no rubbish or food behind there.
8. If you are not sure
Ask. Nobody has ever been in trouble here for asking whether something was alright to post. If you cannot ask us at the time, treat it as confidential until you can.
9. The legal part
9.1 Nothing in this agreement makes you an employee, or obliges us to pay you.
9.2 You agree that the opportunity to take part in our conservation work, and the training, supervision and accommodation provided with it, is good consideration for this agreement.
9.3 If this agreement is broken, we may end your stay immediately, and we may take legal action, including seeking a court order, because disclosure can cause harm that money does not undo.
9.4 This agreement is governed by New Zealand law.
10. How you accept this agreement
You accept this agreement by ticking the confirmation box on our booking form; a booking cannot be completed without it. After you book, we will email you a copy showing your name, the dates of your stay, the date you accepted it and your booking reference, for your records.
If you have a question about any part of it, please ask us before you book: pupurangi.naturesanctuary@gmail.com