History
The trust was founded by local businessman Paul Southworth following clean‑ups near his Turboweb business. When Southworth and his staff moved into their premises at 381 Kaikorai Valley Road, they found the adjacent bank overgrown with gorse, scrub and broom and littered with discarded household rubbish, and the building itself was plagued by rats. Cleaning up this site and witnessing ongoing dumping near the Kaikorai Stream sparked the idea of a wider environmental initiative to improve the valley’s natural environment. [2] [9]
What started as informal restoration work in the vicinity of Turboweb quickly expanded into coordinated community efforts involving rubbish removal, weed control, native planting and predator trapping. Residents began hosting traps on their properties as part of early pest-control activities. [2]
The charitable trust was officially launched in June 2023 at an event held at Kaikorai Valley College, attended by around 50 people. At the launch, Southworth described the trust’s initial focus on “water, plants and predators,” and outlined plans to implement coordinated environmental projects across the valley. [9]
Soon after its formation, the trust secured funding from the Otago Regional Council EcoFund to establish a predator-trapping network targeting possums, rats, mice, hedgehogs and mustelids throughout the Kaikorai Valley catchment. [10]
In 2025, the organisation developed and began promoting the Business+ programme, a pilot educational initiative aimed at engaging local businesses in practical environmental action, with workshops on predator control, water quality and catchment stewardship. [11] [12]
The trust’s activities also attracted support from other community groups; for example, the Town Belt Kaitiaki donated additional pest traps to the organisation to aid its work in protecting native wildlife. [8]
Since its foundation, Aroha Kaikorai Valley has grown beyond its origins as a single cleanup project into a structured community-led organisation focused on restoring the ecological health of the Kaikorai Valley catchment through rubbish clean-ups, predator control, native planting and water and air quality monitoring. [13]
Sister project
Aroha Kaikorai Valley is affiliated with Aroha Cambridge, a registered charitable trust in Cambridge, New Zealand, established in July 2025. Aroha Cambridge supports community-led predator control, native planting, and waterway restoration, and receives guidance from AKV in areas such as branding, documentation, and health and safety. [18] [19]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
