Nature Positive co-founder Katherine Dixon invited catchment group members and agencies who work with farmers and community organisations to the workshops to explore ways to support people doing environmental work in rural communities.
The five-stop tour started in Northland last month and ended in Dunedin last week.
Fifteen people attended the workshop at Dunedin City Library.
Dr Dixon said an aim of the workshops was to identify any support needed from agencies for catchment groups to maintain an "enduring social robustness" and keep their members motivated.
"People are really passionate about it and they put their heart and soul into it and then they crash and there is nobody to follow up, so how do you keep that momentum going?"
Another aim of the project was to open up conversations about every part of a robust farm or catchment restoration project such as the land, the business and resourcing, community connections and the farmers and group members involved.
The workshops were a way to help people talk openly about how they were doing, what they needed and how they could work together to adapt and recover from challenges.
Save the Otago Peninsula project co-ordinator Duncan Ross, of Dunedin, attended the workshop.
The "biggest struggle" for catchment groups was funding and maintaining members after it was spent, Mr Ross said.
"You get a big bit of funding, which lasts for three or five years and then it just stops. Groups rely on the funding and then it is like having the rug pulled out from underneath you."
After the funding was spent, a group needed to maintain a core group of members so when any new funding was secured, a group was functioning for more members to join, he said.
"Without the funding, it is hard to get your local community to work with you," Mr Ross said.
Dr Dixon said the Ministry for Primary Industries funded the national project through its Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change programme.
All information from the tour would be provided to the ministry and a report was expected to be released about June next year, Dr Dixon said.
"We want to learn how the tool is best used to support farmers and catchment groups to consider and plan for social robustness. This will inform us about what happens next with any potential rollout."
The project was an extension of FarmSalus, a five-year Hill Country Futures research programme, led by Beef + Lamb New Zealand.
As part of the programme, Dr Dixon was in a team interviewing nearly 170 farmers and speaking to more than 100 people from government, research and catchment groups.
Dr Dixon said the research showed people in rural communities wanted to bridge the gap between policy and what was happening on the ground.
"They want to be understood, and they want a shared language so they can talk about what’s really going on for them."
FarmSalus was an approach, rather than a tool, Dr Dixon said.
"It’s not about ticking boxes or filling out a form.
"It’s about starting reciprocal conversations and being able to gently go deeper. Good questions lead to better understanding and better results."
Dr Dixon said she believed the reason the ministry selected the project was due to its social focus, providing a chance for rural communities to have deeper conversations on social robustness and what that meant to them.
The project was about understanding how people were going and how policy and decisions affected them, Dr Dixon said.
"When agencies work with communities we get better results. Good policy comes from collaboration and from hearing directly from the people living with the decisions being made."
