The Dunedin environmental group, Save the Otago Peninsula Inc (STOP), has received a $1375 charitable grant to provide plants to enhance the habitat of the endangered jewelled gecko.
The grant, from the Mazda Foundation, a charitable organisation, aims to encourage population growth by the gecko, whose numbers are in decline because of environmental change, predation by rodents and poaching for the animal black market.
STOP spokeswoman Lala Frazer said the donation would be used to plant kanuka, corokia and coprosma in a reserve and to join isolated remnant areas.
In its latest funding round, the Mazda Foundation has also given a $750 grant to Waikouaiti School to buy a class set of ukuleles for pupils.
School organisers said the school had hired ukuleles in the past and this had been such a success that the school had decided to provide each pupil in the music class with an instrument to practise with.
