SEWG – Meeting April 2nd 2025, Otago

The Southern Environmental Working Group kicked off in Dunedin on 2 April 2025, and hosted by the Otago Regional Council. We started with a morning session dedicated to wilding pines, learning more about the national wilding pine programme, the importance of risk assessment and cone reduction spraying trials. We identified that we can do a lot more in the way of sharing skills and knowledge, in particular with how we capture and monitor data.

It was great to meet our Clutha District council reps who are gearing up to be more active with forestry PA notifications and looking to connect with the industry.

For the second part of the day, City Forests hosted us in their Flagstaff Forest, where we talked about the social responsibilities of forest managers and the ongoing project around trying to expand habitat for their galaxiids by making it harder for trout to move upstream of an old stream crossing.