ORC Projects Announced
The Outdoor Recreation Consortium has approved funding for a wide variety of community partners from around New Zealand to enhance and maintain our backcountry assets. Close to 50 projects have been approved, with more in the pipeline and another funding round will take place over the summer.
The most northerly project is in the hills behind Thames where the local tramping club will be working with DOC to improve access to Crosbies Hut (Thames is actually a hot bed of projects with local mountain bikers and 4WDers also obtaining funding). The most southerly project is on Percy Saddle in Southland, where the local MTB club is surveying and marking a new route on this most adventurous of mountain bike rides.
Federated Mountain Clubs President Robin McNeill is impressed with the diversity of projects, “keen outdoors people from around the country are really getting behind this movement to do more to enhance and maintain our backcountry opportunities”.
The Outdoor Recreation Consortium is a joint venture of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association, Trailfund NZ and Federated Mountain Clubs. It is supported by the Department of Conservation’s Community Conservation Partnership Fund, Pūtea Tautiaki Hapori.
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We’re excited to share the new FMC Executive Committee, taking office on June 1 2026.
For over ten years, FMC has been involved in efforts to protect the Waitaha River. FMC made its first submission opposing the scheme in 2016, celebrated it being declined in 2019, and has spent the past 12 months fighting for a voice through the Fast-Track process. Throughout it all, FMC has been advocating for the Waitaha, publicly and behind the scenes.
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