Sam Gibson | 'Sam the Trap Man' on Recently Released Second Book

and with the number of volunteers that you're experiencing do you think there's a resurgence and people wanting to get back out into nature and learn bushcraft learn how to hunt for our own food forage all those kind of things

We've definitely seen post-COVID people really wanting to come out into nature and build up their skill sets.

And that's why the leatherworking and the home butchery and the hunting, et cetera, is a real thing.

We've got like learning to fish weekends as well, which is kind of fun.

But we're seeing a lot of people,

our volunteers come from all over the country.

So we get people from Auckland and Cambridge and Hamilton and Napier and we even have one person that flies their own personal plane up from the South Island to come and be part of the project.

So we get people from all over, but we're definitely seeing a lot of more urban folk coming to our conservation project and treating it like a bit of a bush university because it's somewhere they can come, put themselves under more experienced tanzas, more experienced fishers and people that hold mātauranga.

around our traditional foods what's some european people might call foraging but we call it making a clay and and sort of learning those skills yeah so so so We are seeing a real resurgence in that, particularly from our urban community.

Why do you think that is?

I think it's just people wanting to be people, right? Like it's people wanting to be human.

I think as well, when we're seeing this international political sphere like we are, I think it gives people an element of anxiety and insecurity around the future.

And so maybe they want to control the things that are within their control, like being able to uh gather their own food and feed their own fauna we see a lot of those same people are gardening in a big way vegetable gardening so i think it's just around wanting to connect with nature, but also wanting to have some control over the things they can control, like food.

and with the number of volunteers that you're experiencing do you think there's a resurgence and people wanting to get back out into nature and learn bushcraft learn how to hunt for our own food forage all those kind of things

We've definitely seen post-COVID people really wanting to come out into nature and build up their skill sets.

And that's why the leatherworking and the home butchery and the hunting, et cetera, is a real thing.

We've got like learning to fish weekends as well, which is kind of fun.

But we're seeing a lot of people,

our volunteers come from all over the country.

So we get people from Auckland and Cambridge and Hamilton and Napier and we even have one person that flies their own personal plane up from the South Island to come and be part of the project.

So we get people from all over, but we're definitely seeing a lot of more urban folk coming to our conservation project and treating it like a bit of a bush university because it's somewhere they can come, put themselves under more experienced tanzas, more experienced fishers and people that hold mātauranga.

around our traditional foods what's some european people might call foraging but we call it making a clay and and sort of learning those skills yeah so so so We are seeing a real resurgence in that, particularly from our urban community.

Why do you think that is?

I think it's just people wanting to be people, right? Like it's people wanting to be human.

I think as well, when we're seeing this international political sphere like we are, I think it gives people an element of anxiety and insecurity around the future.

And so maybe they want to control the things that are within their control, like being able to uh gather their own food and feed their own fauna we see a lot of those same people are gardening in a big way vegetable gardening so i think it's just around wanting to connect with nature, but also wanting to have some control over the things they can control, like food.