It’s only natural: Global Credit Crown for Maungatautari

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

A Waikato conservation project has emerged as an unlikely global leader in the fast-growing biodiversity credit market, recording more sales than any other project worldwide last month.

Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari generated $36,855 in biodiversity-credit sales during May, accounting for 43% of all transactions recorded globally, according to Bloom Labs' Monthly Market Overview.

The result put the Waikato ecological sanctuary ahead of projects across Europe, Africa and South America, highlighting growing international interest in funding conservation through market-based mechanisms.

Biodiversity credits are sold through the BioCredita programme operated by Ekos.

The credits are linked to conservation work carried out across the sanctuary's 3363 hectares between Cambridge and Te Awamutu.

Sanctuary Mountain chief executive Helen Hughes said the programme allows the sanctuary to recover costs associated with conservation work already completed.

Each year, the sanctuary undertakes a range of operational and ecological management programmes across the mountain, with the work independently audited and verified to confirm it has been completed.

The sanctuary's annual operating costs are divided across its 3363 hectares to establish a value for the conservation outcomes delivered during that year, Hughes said.

Those outcomes are then broken into smaller units and sold as biodiversity credits.

'For $12 a unit, which is a little bit more palatable than $1200 a unit, we sell a slice of all of the work that we've done for the year prior,' Hughes said.

The revenue helps offset operating costs that are not covered through grants, donations and other funding sources.

Hughes said Sanctuary Mountain recorded an operating loss of nearly $600,000 in 2024.

Before biodiversity credits are offered for sale, credits are retired on behalf of organisations that have already contributed funding during the year, including funders such as Waikato Regional Council.

The remaining credits are then offered for sale through the market.

'What you've seen with Bloom Labs in May was a decent amount of sales that we achieved through the use of money we otherwise would have made an operating loss and wouldn't have been able to cost recover,' Hughes said.

Bloom's data shows the sanctuary has featured regularly in the biodiversity-credit market throughout 2026.

In January, the sanctuary recorded about $644 in sales.

In February, it recorded 22 transactions worth about $4300, the highest transaction count of any project tracked by Bloom that month.

In March, Kiwi software company MoneyWorks purchased $3500 worth of credits linked to the sanctuary, and in May, the sanctuary recorded 23 transactions worth $36,855.

Hughes said about 90% to 95% of biodiversity-credit sales over the past 12 months had been bundled with carbon credits sold through Ekos.

Businesses purchasing carbon credits are also able to purchase biodiversity credits linked to conservation projects.

The sanctuary has also secured direct biodiversity-credit commitments from businesses including Cambridge-based APL and MoneyWorks.

Hughes said both organisations had committed to purchasing biodiversity credits over three years without bundling them with carbon credits.

While most sales have been made through carbon-credit bundling, Hughes said the sanctuary was also exploring opportunities for biodiversity credits to be incorporated into consumer products, allowing a small portion of a purchase to contribute towards conservation work at Maungatautari.

Bloom identified a number of New Zealand organisations among purchasers of Sanctuary Mountain biodiversity credits during May, including Tonkin + Taylor, Tourism Industry Aotearoa, the New Zealand Educational Institute and Picot Productions.