Palmerston North's Rescue Emergency Support Team (REST) is one of 18 nationally accredited emergency rescue teams in the country. They are run by Palmerston North City Council as part of the Civil defence act of 2002. 
 
The team, who are all volunteers, provide support to emergency services within the Manawatu region for:
Civil defence emergency management
Light urban search & rescue
Flood, swift water or high angle rope rescue emergencies

REST has been registered as a NZ Response Team with the designation NZRT-4 since 2004. This registration recognises the team’s ability to provide emergency response anywhere within New Zealand if requested by an affected region.

In 2016 the team :

• attended 83 Activities (training, displays, callouts)  
• Donated over 3800 hours of time to training & events  
• Donated over 200 hours to incident response  
•  Assisted the Police, the  Fire Service, and SPCA National Rescue Unit