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After the last 3 volunteer days had been cancelled for various reasons we finally managed to coordinate a great day on Saturday 6th March 2021.  Special thanks to all that volunteered for the day.  Also thanks goes to Environment Southland for hosting and DOC for allowing us to use one of their sites, Amuri Helicopters for supplying the transport to the DOC 5 location, Stihl for the generous donation of tools and PGG Wrightson for the new High vis vests that we were able to get branded.

As chair of the Mid Dome Trust we’re very appreciative that Minister Damien O’Connor chose to announce the government’s funding of $100M to be spent NZ wide on wilding pines over the next four years during his visit to Mid Dome.

Having battled for years to gain sufficient funding for the wilding tree problem at Mid Dome, the injection of $3.05M for this year’s work programme will enable us to make significant gains in controlling wilding trees in the area.

Environment Southland Chairman, Nicol Horrell and Southland District Council Mayor, Gary Tong for came along to support our work as well as local landowners.

The additional funding will result in an estimated 44 jobs for contractors who carry out the control work, as well as generate other business for the local economy.

John and Ket were in Southland to learn how the Mid Dome Trust operates and share learnings for managing wilding trees.

Go Orange provided one of their unimogs for the days transportation.

A group of participants from SIT’s Environmental Management department spent the weekend (6/03 – 8/03) at Tomogalak farm pulling out some wilding pines.

The participants included 11 students and two staff members who were joined by property owners Jeff, Lindsay, John, Faith and Syd Keen. They traversed the hills of Tomogalak and pulled out an estimated number of 2000 wilding pine seedlings.

One of the participants, Samantha Edwards, a second year student was pleased to have pulled about 250 seedlings in one day on March 7th, 2020.

With support from the Mid Dome Wilding Trees Charitable Trust, the Environmental Management students and staff have been participating in this program at Tomogalak farm for over a decade. The Keens are happy to continue this valuable program. 

Photos taken by Jesse Bythell

ground control by various contractors over the years