The arrival of irrigation to the Canterbury Plains has resulted in widespread landscape change. Is there any opportunity to co-opt some of this water to also create environmental gains? In this project, currently being implemented, a network of 1,200,000 native trees is being planted on Ngai Tahu Property’s 7600 hectare dairy conversion project. In all 5% of the land area will become native forest. Plants are located according to the specific benefits they might bring to the farming operation. But also regional scale benefits become available with a long-term 20 km x 10 km ecological bird-bridge established to connect the forests of the Southern Alps with Banks Peninsula that creates the shortest route across the intensively farmed plains.