The Worlds Loneliest Tree

During the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 20132014 we worked on an extremely remote location within the Southern Hemisphere: the World Heritage subantarctic archipelago in the Southern Ocean known as Campbell Island (52S). Cared for by the New Zealand Department of Conservation Campbell Island is an all too rare piece of real estate in the depths of the Southern Ocean. On Campbell Island we undertook scientific sampling to get a better handle on the scale of environmental change in this most remote of locations. In the southern part of the island, a solitary Sitka spruce can be found, a species of tree only found in the south because humans transplanted it there. The tree was reportedly planted in 1901 by Lord Ranfurly, Governor of New Zealand (sometimes called the Ranfurly tree). A common reference by tourist operators in the region is the worlds loneliest tree br,