Zealandia v Zoo

An interesting op ed by Zealandia Chair Catherine Isaac:

The zoo is asking for a further $59 million of ratepayers’ money over the next 10 years. Its annual grant this year is $2.8 million.

Ratepayers pay $14 per visitor to the zoo, compared with 43 cents per visitor to Zealandia. …

As the editorial notes, the proposal is also anathema to many of the 450 Zealandia volunteers who currently care for the sanctuary, whose time is worth about $900,000 a year. If, as the editorial suggests, the council takes over tending the valley, it would also bear that additional cost.

Volunteer time is but one of the huge donations made to Zealandia.

Over the last 17 years we’ve raised $16 million (not including council funding). In the past year, we’ve raised $400,000 and pared costs back to the bone. Staff and managers are all ‘hands-on’, with a strong volunteerism ethos. It is hard to imagine how a council- controlled organisation would fare running a community project of this nature.

So where are the savings to be made from the proposed ‘super’ CCO and what do these organisations really have in common? Your article suggests Zealandia could grow visitor numbers by using the “zoo’s marketing know- how and database”. In fact Zealandia and the zoo could hardly be more different, in terms of target markets, products, supporters, objectives, culture and relevance to Wellington’s reputation as an ‘eco-friendly’ city.

The Zealandia vision, once thought barely credible, is now being proposed as a national vision, as described in the final lecture of our trustee, the late Sir Paul Callaghan. It is difficult indeed to see how the council’s proposal to merge Zealandia with the zoo could either support and advance that vision or set the sanctuary on a sustainable economic footing.

I didn’t realise the zoo subsidy was so great. Catherine makes some valid points in her op ed. I was mildly supportive of the CCO proposal, but I think her argument about the probable loss of volunteer labour is quite persuasive as to why it should not happen.