Above picture: ‘Lilting Light-Mantled’, by Kitty Harvill, after a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson
While aboard the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 voyage on the MSC Musica in January this year, Ken Robinson sponsored 100 hectares to the Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project, placing him in the “senior’ Wandering Albatross category on the project’s Honour Roll.
MFM Project Supporter, Ken Robinson
MFM News contacted Ken to find out what inspired him to make such a generous donation. Ken lives in the Parkview suburb of Johannesburg, is a management consultant for a global chartered accountant company and was on the previous Flock to Marion voyage. He replies: “I have visited over 200 countries, and I have seen many conservation projects. After the failure to eradicate mice by the Gough Island Restoration Programme, I hope I can help a bit more on Marion Island.”
The MFM Project team is most grateful that Ken Robinson has supported our project. In appreciation he has received the original painting of a Near Threatened Light-mantled Albatross as depicted above. The artwork was kindly donated to the project by Kitty Harvill, the MFM Project’s Artist-in-Residence, who painted it while aboard the Flock 2025 voyage.
John Cooper, News Correspondent, Mouse-Free Marion Project. 20 June 2025
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Sooty Albatross during the Flock 2025 voyage; photograph by Trevor Hardaker
The Mouse-Free Marion Project is a registered non-profit company (No. 2020/922433/08) in South Africa, established to eradicate the invasive albatross-killing mice on Marion Island in the Southern Ocean. The project was initiated by BirdLife South Africa and the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. Upon successful completion, the project will restore the critical breeding habitat of over two million seabirds, many globally threatened, and improve the island’s resilience to a warming climate. For more information or to support the project please visit mousefreemarion.org.
