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Te Ipukarea Society is an environmental organisation in the Cook Islands formed to help look after our Ipukarea, ‘our heritage’. Our philosophy is that we do not own our land and marine resources but borrow them from our future generations, and need to leave them in good condition.

We are a membership-based organisation made up of individuals who believe in the need to maintain a healthy and beautiful environment. We are members of IUCN and Birdlife International.

Find out more about Te Ipukarea Society in our About us section.

Join us in the race against time to battle the rats in Suwarrow, the Cook Islands' only national park and a very special place which is identified globally as an Important Bird Area.

Suwarrow is home to breeding seabirds, including frigates, red tailed tropic birds and brown boobies. Ground nesting birds are particularly vulnerable to rats. In August this year, our monitoring team found evidence of rats on one small motu (islet). This means our 2018 rat eradication mission was mostly successful, but time is of the essence to stop them from spreading to the other motu.

We hope to raise $50,000 by May/ June 2022, (after cyclone season) to purchase materials & charter the Marumaru Atua traditional vaka to voyage to Suwarrow and eradicate these kiore once and for all.

Please help, if able, by donating to TIS here (annotate 'Suwarrow') or if you are outside of the Cook Islands or NZ, you can contribute to our crowdfunding page here.

Te Ipukarea Society staff have recently embarked on a voyage on the Marumaru Atua vaka to our southern group islands. This will complete the historic voyage which will travel across the entire Cook Islands. The first leg of the journey was to the northern group islands, for 7 weeks over July and August 2021.

The voyage, called Tāua e Moana - Ocean & I, is a collaboration with Kōrero O Te `Ōrau and the Cook Islands Voyaging Society. The voyage is an opportunity to share messages of ocean health and to initiate shared discussion with the communities on these islands.

On our visits to the Pa 'Enua, we have been giving presentations to schools and community groups on ocean health issues, marine plastic pollution and on our Maine Mura project promoting reusable menstruation products. While in Suwarrow we trapped to check for rats and undertook bird surveys on several motu. We also undertook bird surveys in Tongareva/Penhryn and Motu Ko Taua in Pukapuka.