Te Ipukarea Society: Guarding the Cook Islands' Reefs and Seabirds

Registered in 1996, Te Ipukarea Society works across biodiversity, climate change, eco-sustainable development, waste management and youth education, and is BirdLife International's official Cook Islands partner. TIS helped push through the country's single-use plastic bag and polystyrene ban policy, adopted nationally between 2018 and 2023. Since 2025 it has run 'Te Manu Tai o te Kūki 'Airani', a seabird monitoring project using acoustic song meters to find rare, elusive petrels and shearwaters; by July 2025 the project had confirmed three tubenose seabird species nesting on Rarotonga's mountains after decades without records. TIS also supports the strengthening of traditional raui (customary reef closures) under the Marae Moana marine park framework.