Te Henga Tuturiwhatu was originally started by long-time locals Lesley and Richard Gardner after they attended a dotterel minding course at Pukorokoro/Miranda run by dotterel expert John Dowding. We have support from a wide variety of locals, as well as from other dotterel minders around Auckland and New Zealand. We also receive support from Auckland Council and their Biodiversity team, who run a yearly dotterel forum in April where groups exchange successes and failures,  and give each other encouragement to continue the mahi.