John was involved with setting up the South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust in 2016 and became chair in 2018. 

In 1996 he transitioned into owning a vineyard in Blenheim after 30 years farming on the Awatere high country station, Mount Carmel.

 In the mid 70s he became concerned about the plantings of Contorta Pine in the Branch/Leatham and raised the issue with the Council and numerous agencies over a  7 year campaign to stop the planting.

 He also played a major role in successfully keeping the Marlborough Catchment Board out of the Awatere Valley, and this resulted in no plantings of contorta pine in “so called” land restoration programmes.

During 2017 John, Ross Beech and Steve Satterthwaite were instrumental in bringing all the landowners in the Awatere together to apply to the Lotteries Commission. With the subsequent funding the Trust was able to begin its wilding pine operations and establish a positive track record. Over the last 6 years the Trust has attracted significant funding from lotteries, the Rātā Foundation ($450,000), and the DOC Community Fund. SMLRT is also supported by an annual grant from the Marlborough District Council.t goes here

Steve took ownership of Muller Station at the head of the Awatere Valley in 1971 from his father, and continues to run merino’s across the 40,000 hectares. Both Steve’s children, now adults  have a strong interest in the land and are part of the Muller team.

Muller Station is downwind of the Wilding Pine seed source coming out of the Branch/Leatham valleys. This is the largest threat Muller faces as trees continue to encroach across these lands. Steve has always been involved in community groups such as the Awatere Pest Board and was one of the original founders of South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust, and remains as a trustee on the Board.

Hayley please add anything else you may have to this bio and a pic (:

Stuart moved to Marlborough in 2006 after completing a bachelor of science at Otago University and post graduate diploma in Viticulture and Wine Making at Lincoln University. Specialising in technical viticulture, initially working with Delegats as grower viticulturist and recently as Villa Maria’s South Island Regional Viticulturist. In 2010 Stuart National Young Viticulturist and Young Horticulturist titles. Stuart is passionate about the future of the New Zealand wine industry and is involved with vineyard research projects to ensure its sustainability and continued reputation for quality wines. Stuart was Chair of the Marlborough Young Vit committee for 2 years and then putting his leadership skills to good use as a member and then Deputy Chair of Wine Marlborough. In 2019 Stuart was shortlisted for the new international ‘Future 50 Awards’. Through these roles he has developed extensive experience in all aspects of viticultural management. Stuart is married to Charlotte and has two children Cleo and Freddie.

Dip Ag, Dip VFM [Valuation and Farm Management] 1970

Practiced as a NZ Govt. Rural Valuer in Canterbury, then private practice in Taranaki. 7 years dairy farming in Taranaki, then 29 years sheep/beef in the Awatere Valley.  Currently owner/manager of a vineyard in the Brancott Valley.

Strong conservation values and dedication to the preservation of natural landscapes and ecology has led to a life active in these areas, both in an official capacity and through recreation interests of mountaineering, tramping, fly fishing, photography and mountain biking.

Inaugural winner of Supreme Award at the Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards 1997, and subsequent judge of the farming category and Trustee.

Served 11 years as the appointed Rural Representative on the Environment Committee of the Marlborough District Council, and held the Biodiversity portfolio for 3 years.

Has facilitated farm discussion groups, and has been a Trustee of the SMLRT since its inception. Presently Chairman of the Wilding Conifer Regional Steering Group Marlborough.

Spotted all over Marlborough on a daily basis, Stu supports our growers to produce the very best fruit they can. As the face of Villa Maria’s ‘Vintage’ documentary, Stu’s experience and knowledge of the Marlborough region is second to none. After leaving Villa Stu started his own companies Vit Management and The Marlborist with his skilled friends.

Ket Bradshaw came on board as the Trust’s Coordinator in 2017. A tramp into the Branch Leatham earlier in the same year convinced her that the plantings she had reported as a forester in the NZ Forest Service head office, 40 years earlier,  were a serious problem. Contorta pine preventing access onto alpine ridges and Douglas fir seedlings blanketing the Branch riverbed.

 Setting up the Trust took increasingly more time and lured Ket back from contracting to government departments in Wellington (MfE, MPI and Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority etc) to make a difference on the ground here in Marlborough. Establishing the Trust has been rewarding and she has established a Volunteer Programme to sit alongside our control operations.

Ket’s on the NZ Wilding Pine Network management committee and helped to host the network's conference in Blenheim in 2022. She’s also been appointed to the Molesworth Steering Committee and is contributing to the Rangitahi/Molesworth Management Plan process.

Ket teaches Iyengar Yoga from her home studio outside Renwick. In her spare time she’s reestablishing a significant wetland and tending her pine nut orchard on the Northbank of the Wairau.

Margret came to live in Marlborough in 2016 as a lifestyle change and to enjoy the southern outdoors. As an avid tramper since her teens, she has spent much time exploring many of the country’s National Parks and State Forests. It was only after moving to Marlborough and venturing into the nearby backcountry that she discovered the vast spread of Wilding Pines. She was then even more astonished to find twelve species were purposefully planted as a government initiative during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s in an answer to cover barren backcountry slopes with vegetation and hence introducing the rampant spread of these exotics across the landscape.

When an opportunity arose to join other volunteers for a day on an alpine backcountry ridgeline to hand-remove these from a small select area, her interest grew and soon after found an opportunity to join the admin team of Southern Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust.

Jo and her family founded the Tempello Biodiversity Project. The Griggs vision is to successfully manage a private conservation and recreational reserve area that represents the essence of Marlborough’s natural and cultural history within their farm property.

Jo is really involved in their farming business. She also chairs the Marlborough Environment Awards Trust and has been a rural journalist and communicator for more than 25 years.

Jo has been a rural journalist and communicator for 25 years, starting off with the Meat Board. She is a contributing writer to Country-Wide Magazine and Farmer’s Weekly and loves writing about all things farmy. 

She doesn’t mind tackling anything to do with Ag science (especially sheep, beef, deer, and carbon sequestration) and even legislation and policy – her view is farmers need to understand what is coming down the line and be informed.

She and her husband David grow sheepmeat, beef, merino wool and sauvignon blanc grapes on a 4900-hectare hill country farm, in Marlborough, which she is really involved with. 

Jo chairs the Marlborough Environment Awards Trust. She won the 2022 Beef + Lamb NZ Hard News Award and the 2021 AgResearch Science Writers Award (NZ Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators).

I am a trustee of the South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust (SMLRT) and currently hold the position of treasurer.

I am 66 years of age and have worked in various aspects of resource management, both for local government and private firms for a total of 37 years including 24 years as a resource management consultant in the commercial sector. I now work for my own company, RMco Ltd as a resource management consultant.

My qualifications include a Bachelor of Agricultural Science majoring in agricultural engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Agricultural Engineering and Soil and Water Conservation Certificate.

I have an extensive history of working with environmental issues, compliance and resource consent matters much of this in the rural sector and involving working alongside landowners, government and local government agencies and private professionals.

Much of my current work involves the preparation of resource consent applications for a full range of resource consents and taking these applications though the relevant Resource Management Act processes including Council and Environment Court hearings.

I pride myself on understanding practical issues with my client’s development proposals and translating those into resource consent applications that ultimately are granted. One of the corner stones of my business is the ability to find innovative and environmentally acceptable solutions while also meeting my client’s commercial aspirations.

Since coming back to live in Marlborough in 1993 I have been acutely aware of the issue of wilding conifer infestations particularly in the high country and surprised that there was no serious coordinated effort to control the spread of infestation.

My becoming a trustee of SMLRT was inspired by the passion, experience and commitment of trustees and employees of SMLRT and the real progress they were making with some of the wildling infestations. The support by agencies such as Marlborough District Council, the Department of Conservation, the Wildling Pine Network, various sponsors such as the Rata Foundation and Marlborough wineries and the buy in by landowners, helped confirm to me that this was an organisation that really can make a meaningful difference to the spread of wilding conifers which is critical to the indigenous biodiversity of Marlborough.

Murray Chapman, a Waihopai farmer of 65 years and very keen backcountry tramper has had the opportunity to see first-hand the creep of wilding pines across our landscapes. Much of his tramping has been off-track allowing him to explore most of the alpine basis, passes and valleys of South Marlborough.

Murray has always had an interest in trees and planted numerous ornamental varieties on his land to showcase and started farming angora goats in the early 1980s building herd numbers to 1600  before a vineyard conversion 10 years ago resulted in numbers now reduced to 150.

Murray joined the Trust in 2018 and has been invaluable in spreading his knowledge of wildings into his local area.

Ken is a recent addition to the SMLRT. He was employed by the New Zealand Forest Service in the mid-eighties, and was involved on the ground in conservation work and in the planting programme in the Branch and Leatham catchments.

Having planted conifers on Mt Morris and Blowhard, he has watched them proliferate exponentially over the last thirty years. He has seen the transformation of the landscape, into one dominated by exotic invasive species - steadily displacing indigenous flora. A temporal insight he sees as frightening when thinking of the expansion likely to take place in the next decades.

This early association with the area also gives Ken the benefit of an understanding of the scientific paradigms for decision makers at the time and of the alarming consequences of mis-matched human responses to environmental management.

Ken was a secondary school teacher at Nelson College from the late nineties until 2014. He now manages his lifestyle block and tourism cottage near Nelson, where he lives with wife Vivien. In between trips into the hills, he particularly enjoys time spent enhancing their regenerating native forest.

I’ve worked in the pest and weed industry since 1989, and have been employed by the Marlborough Pest Destruction Board, Nelson Marlborough Regional Council and the Marlborough District Council

I formed Valley Pest Control Ltd in 2003, as a contract-based pest and weed control company

I have been involved in all industry facets including aerial and ground based pest and weed control, commercial possum hunting, tree felling, vegetation clearance, and weed spraying. Most of my work has been in Marlborough, but I have also worked in Canterbury and Nelson. I’ve have been involved in industry research projects on possums, feral pigs, toxins etc. My hunting dogs have been used in feral pig survey work. I have been involved in wilding pine control since 2005, and have accumulated several thousand hours in helicopters as a wand operator, shooter and general pest work.

I have a National Certificate in Vertebrate Pest Management, and am a Grosafe Registered Ag Chem Operator

My interests outside of work are fishing, hunting, cricket, white baiting and muscle cars of the 60-70’s

I live on a 240 Hectare block in Okaramio which we have spent 15 years restoring back to Native bush, and also own a 2.5Ha block in Tory Channel, where we have spent 10 years restoring back to native

I'm originally from Sheffield, UK, but New Zealand stole my heart 15 years ago during a year abroad. That experience led me to settle in Blenheim, where I built a family and a fulfilling career. With a degree in Equine Science, I transitioned into the wine industry, spending 15 years as a Brand, Events, Strategy Marketing & Sales Manager.

After having children, I ventured into freelance work, collaborating with local businesses. This allowed me to work closely with owners, helping their visions come to life and witnessing their growth firsthand.

My time in the wine industry has been rich with diverse experiences. I've partnered with bottling companies, label and cap suppliers, and winemakers, handling everything from forecasting to problem-solving.

Additionally, my involvement with The South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust has been truly enlightening. Working alongside DOC, MPI, the Wilding Pine Network, and local iwi has given me a deep appreciation for their practices and motivations.