Mo ngā awa te aroha, he waiaroha — For the love of rivers
A national fund to keep New Zealand’s whitewater rivers open to the public, and to win back the access we’ve lost.
Jeffery Davies starting the long walk into the Arahura River – Photo courtesy of Orion Junkins
Across the country, paddlers are fighting a constant battle to maintain access to rivers. Roads and tracks fall into disrepair, take-outs become unsafe, and some access we’ve relied on for years gets closed off entirely. These problems rarely fix themselves, and until now, they’ve had nowhere to go.
The River Access Fund pays for the practical work that keeps paddlers getting safely on and off the water, and it stands up for access when it’s under threat.
It is national and open to every affiliated club, wherever your river is. It sits alongside the Mangahao Fund, which primarily serves the lower North Island under a specific agreement and provides a fighting fund for rivers of national importance. The River Access Fund enables us to properly cover the rest of the country.
Two kinds of work, one fund.
Access Works. Track cutting, road repair, steps and stairs at put-ins and take-outs, parking, signage, gates and stiles, and clearing hazards such as fallen trees.
Access Defence. Working with landowners, councils and communities to keep access open. Submissions, easements, and legal advice to protect or win back access that’s been lost.
The fund launches with proceeds from our 2026 nationwide film night and grows through donations. Every dollar goes toward keeping rivers open for the whole paddling community, including rivers you may never paddle, but someone else calls home.
Donate to the River Access Fund and get tickets to the 2026 Paddling Film Night
If your club has an access project, we want to hear from you.
We can also help beyond the grant, including identifying other funders and helping put applications together.
The River Access Fund is held separately from our other funds and overseen by the WWNZ board against published criteria, with our conflict-of-interest policy applying to every decision. We publish the projects the fund supports, so you can see where your koha goes. The fund aims to enable balanced contributions across the many regions in which access issues have become a concern.
