Wellington Land SAR is a member of New Zealand Land SAR (Inc). Within the NZLSAR context, Wellington Land SAR is one of 8 District SAR organisations within Police Region 4. This Police region covers the southern North Island.

The Wellington Land SAR operational area includes the greater Wellington metropolitan region, Kapiti Island, and the Chatham Islands. It can be described as follows:

1. WLSAR covers the Wellington metropolitan area, and the south western end of the North Island.
2. Draw a line that runs east from Peka Peka on the West Coast (just North of Waikanae), to the main divide of the Tararura's.
3. Then draw a line that runs south along the main divide of the southern Tararua range and the Rimutaka range to the south coast at Cape Turakirae (between Baring Head and the Wairarapa).
4. The Pekapeka - Cape Turakirae line is the Northern and Eastern boundary of the Wellington Land SAR region. The coastline south of that line constitutes the rest of the mainland boundary.

Conditions within our search area encompass a mixture of backcountry and urban landscapes. More specific descriptions of our potential search areas include:

• open sub-alpine tops
• steep rugged forests
• regenerating scrubland
• plantation forests
• open farmland
• marshland, estuaries, rocky coastal strips and sandy beaches
• offshore islands, and
• urban or suburban areas.

Our immediate neighbours are the Levin SAR Organisation to the north, and the Wairarapa SAR organisation to the east. In large operations, these adjacent SAR organisations can share resources and personnel.

Wellington Land SAR is a partnership between the Wellington Metropolitan Police and trained civilian volunteers. The First Response group, which consists of about 80 trained volunteers, is at the core of the volunteer organisation. Our volunteers mainly come from local tramping clubs. However, WLSAR increasingly accepts members who are not affiliated to any club if they can show they have the necessary backcountry skills and experience. All members must participate in our training programme.