Leonardo DiCaprio lauds Wellington’s kiwi conservation efforts

Leonardo DiCaprio took to Instagram to congratulate Wellington's conservation efforts. Photo / Getty Images

Leonardo DiCaprio has thrown his star power behind New Zealand conservation efforts.

The actor, producer and self-described environmentalist posted on social media lauding Wellington’s work to restore habitats and protect birdlife.

“Like many cities across the globe, human activity, habitat destruction and invasive species had decimated Wellington’s birdlife,” DiCaprio explained. “By the 1990s, many native species were on the brink of going locally extinct.”

However, as the Killers of the Flower Moon star told his 62 million followers, the district has bucked the global trend. “As the wild disappears from most cities around the world, New Zealand’s capital has been transformed by efforts to welcome native birds into its urban backyard.”

He drew attention to The Capital Kiwi Project in particular and encouraged his audience to read more about it.

“In 2022, the @capital.kiwi project was launched as a community initiative to help reintroduce iconic kiwis back into Wellington’s wilds after a 100-year absence,” the star wrote. “By restoring a wild, sustainable population of kiwi to Wellington, they are making a significant contribution to saving this beloved species and #rewilding New Zealand [sic].”

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Spanning 23,000 hectares and working with the Department of Conservation, locals, landowners and iwi, The Capital Kiwi Project, which launched in 2018, uses a network of 4600 stoat traps to remove the predator, alongside releasing kiwi, with the vision of building a large-scale wild kiwi population.

Capital Kiwi founder and project lead Paul Ward told the New Zealand Herald he wasn’t expecting his phone to blow up this morning, with the shy but tough nocturnal bird being thrust into the international limelight in front of millions of people.

“It’s surreal to see Wellington’s wild kiwi chicks go global from a muddy Mākara hillside. From a project perspective, we’re stoked on behalf of all the people that have enabled kiwi to be restored to the hills of our capital city - our community, iwi and landowner partners, after an absence of 150 years. It’s pretty pretty sweet to see that epic collective effort recognised internationally. I hope that we are helping show what’s possible when people work together around a shared purpose,” said Ward.

The attention came out of the blue, and though it was very welcome, they’re not letting it distract them from their work.

“While the tautoko from Leo is awesome, our team will be out there in the rain this arvo, checking traps and monitoring birds ahead of kiwi releases next week at Karori Golf Course and Mākara Farm. The Capital Kiwi Project is a simple proposition: Kiwis can share our hills, and kiwi should share our hills, so we’re a bunch of Wellingtonians that have got on with delivering that.”

The Hollywood star uses Instagram predominantly to draw attention to environmental issues, including coral bleaching, deforestation, pollution, rewilding and animal conservation.

In 1998, he founded a namesake non-profit to raise awareness and work with other organisations. DiCaprio has also been involved with the World Wildlife Fund and International Fund for Animal Welfare.

As a filmmaker, he has been prolific in producing environmentally conscious documentaries, including Virunga (2014), about mountain gorillas, Cowspiracy (2014), about the beef and dairy industries, Catching the Sun (2015), about solar power, The Ivory Game (2016), about elephant poaching, as well as Before The Flood (2016) and Ice on Fire (2019), about global warming.

DiCaprio has called climate change the world’s “number one environmental challenge”.