Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. NATURE'S, TRUSTEE: PERRINE MONCRIEFF AND NATURE CONSERVATION IN NEW ZEALAND 1920-1950 Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Massey University JENNIFER ROBIN HODGE 1999 ii ABSTRACT This study addresses the question of Perrine Moncrieff's significance within the movement for nature conservation in New Zealand between 1920 and 1950. Although it is an examination of her beliefs and ideas about the natural world and activities towards indigenous wild fauna and flora, it also shows how her contemporaries viewed nature and acted towards it. Thus it places Moncrieff into a conservationist setting in which there were many, often conflicting, viewpoints. Moncrieff's vitalist, holistic world-view, and her science and aesthetics as the most important elements of her conservation, are charted historically against what was then, and remains, the orthodox, scientific, materialist world­ view. Within this contextualisation, her participation in the ornithological discourse is examined first as birds were her entry to the natural world. The study then investigates the ways in which she achieved her successes of nature reserves, the opposition she encountered, and the assistance she obtained. It looks at the ways in which she sought to promote a conservation perspective amongst New Zealanders, and at reasons for her failure. Her position within the land degradation debates is analysed. Lastly the question of her sex on her work is examined; the extent of her agency in the face of gendered expectations. Arguments were achieved by the close examination of her extant correspondence and published writings, and by the interpretation of her beliefs, ideas and activities within the body of existing historical scholarship. Threading through all chapters is the question of why she "disappeared" from the historical record of conservation, given the contemporary status she achieved for her work. The analysis suggests that the answer is not simply the conventional "because she was a woman"; that other factors operated, including the assumption by today's Green movement, that it has no history. III For my grandmother, Honorah Heerdegen who was the first to show me the fascination of history IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of Contents iv List of Illustrations and Maps v List of Abbreviations vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 "Seeing the whole as a whole" 11 Chapter 2 Connections 59 Chapter 3 An amateur scientist in the field 97 Chapter 4 A voice for birds 133 Chapter 5 Seeking sanctuaries 174 Chapter 6 A voice for Nature; fostering an ethic of trusteeship 218 Chapter 7 Nature's warning; the trustees' perfidy and land 260 degradation Chapter 8 "In I go ...a woman in the chair. .. " 297 Conclusion: lost and found 339 Bibliography 350 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS Photograph of Perrine Moncrieff, 1930s IX Photograph of E.V.(Val) Sanderson 217 Photograph of Perrine Moncrieff 349 Map of Nelson and Marlborough Provinces showing places of 58 relevance to Perrine Moncrieff Map of New Zealand showing places of birdwatching interest 96 to Perrine Moncrieff Map of Reserves Perrine Moncrieff obtained or was interested 173 in protecting vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AP&G Act 1921-22 Animals Protection and Game Act Bush and Bird Nelson Bush and Bird Society DOC Department of Conservation lA Department of Internal Affairs Forest and Bird Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. MONZ Museum of New Zealand Archives, Wellington NA National Archives, Wellington NAS Nelson Acclimatization! Acclimatisation Society NI Nelson Institute and Museum NPS Nelson Philosophical Society NZI New Zealand Institute OSNZ Ornithological Society of New Zealand RAOU Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union RSNZ Royal Society of New Zealand RSPB Royal Society for the Protection of Birds RSPCA Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals SPFE Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire BTO British Trust for Ornithology WTU Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington AJHR Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives DNZB Dictionary of New Zealand Biography JSPFE Journal of the Societyfo r the Preservation of the Fa una of the Empire NEM Nelson Evening Mail, now Nelson Mail NZlS&T New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology vii NZPD New Zealand Parliamentary Debates Statutes New Zealand Statutes TPRSNZ Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, formerly TPNZI, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 1. Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society Papers, MS Papers 0444, Folders 192-197, Perrine Moncrieff, WTU. la. Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society Papers, MS Papers 4723, Folders 1-4. 2. Perrine Moncrieff's letters to various correspondents, of which I hold copies; my taped or written interviews and correspondence with her friends and colleagues. 3. Falla Papers, MS Papers 2366, Folder 67, Perrine Moncrieff, WTU. 4. Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Papers, MS 11437, Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Australia. 5. Ornithological Society of New Zealand Archive, Auckland Institute and Museum, Auckland. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my supervisors Basil Poff, Michael Roche and GeoffPark for their invaluable guidance and Kerry Howe for his support; my family Peter, Pete, Andrew and Julia; Janet McCallum; Bridget Moncrieff, Perrine's daughter-in-law, and Jane Bowdler, Perrine's niece; - those who agreed to be interviewed: Joy Anderson, Steve Anderson, Peter Andrews, Roger Bray, Frank Boyce, June Carson, Alan Fielding, Lou Gurr, E.M. Harcourt, Pat Harcourt, Jenny Hawkins, Jim Hefford, Henk Heinekamp, Patrick McGrath, Craig Potton, Guy Salmon, Gwen Struik, Pat Timings; - correspondents who replied to my requests for information, especially G.A.Bell, Coralie Grooby, Tess Kloot, H.L. and A.Secker and E.G.Turbott; Karen Puklowski for her maps fellow students Mary Gillingham, Isabella Mitchell and Graham Langton; History secretaries Rama McGee, Mary Lou Dickson and Lynn Coates; Archivists, Manuscript and Archives, Alexander Tumbull Library. ix Perrine Moncrieff and pets, including Miss Micawber, her macaw parrot, 1930s. Alexander Turnbull Library National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga 0 Aotearoa Reference Number: P - AC 5527-01 1 INTRODUCTION ...Farewell Spit is a wildlife area where the welfare of the waders should receive prior consideration .... With the pressure of [human] population it is imperative that the coming generation should be educated to the fact that where certain species must be preserved and the area where they dwell protected the conservation aspect must take priorityto Man's amusement. l Perrine Moncrieff's exhortation on Farewell Spit, one of New Zealand's most important nature reserves, signals her unorthodox world-view that on occasion the needs of non-humans must take precedence over the wishes of human beings. On the tidal flats and sand dunes creeping out across Tasman Bay, she argued, the godwit should have higher status than the "kiwi". The predominant theme of this thesis, which is an investigation of Moncrieff's significance in nature conservation between 1920 and 1950, is that her unconventional world-view informed and motivated her work. Etymologically, "conservation" is problematic because of its two clusters of meanings. I shall use the word in the way that Moncrieff did, and with the meaning it is given in the 1987 Conservation Act; that is, in the sense of permanent preservation and protection. 2 This study conforms to the genre of environmental history which, in merging cultural and natural history, allows autonomous agency to the natural I Perrine Moncrieff, Report, undated, her emphasis, enclosed with letter E.N.Young, Commissioner Crown Lands Nelson, to Chairman National Parks Association, 7 July 1969, Farewell Spit file LS 6/10/2, DOC HO Wellington. 2 1987 New Zealand Conservation Act, Statutes, 1(1987), p.260. Paul Star, in his thesis on T.H.Potts, defined "conservation" as "the wise use of resources" but acknowledged that today the meaning has moved away from "an emphasis on use"; "T .H.Potts and the origins of conservation in New Zealand (1850-1 890)" , MA thesis in History (University of Otago, 1992), p.5. "Wise use" can also be referred to as "sustainable management" or "progressive conservation". These terms are synonymous. Contemporary New Zealand environmental law refers to sustainability; fo r example, 1986 Environment Act, Statutes 3(1986), p.1380; and 1991 Resource Management Act, Statutes, 2(1991), p.615. But some American histories like Samuel P.Hays, Conservation and the gospel of effi ciency (Cambridge Massachusetts, 1959), talk of "progressive conservation" . 2 world or nature. The natural world is no longer "the passive background in historical narratives,,3; it contributes another dimension to historical understanding. In Simon Schama's description, environmental historians restore "to the land and climate the kind of creative unpredictability conventionally reserved for human actors" so that "man is not the be-all and end-all of the story ".4 Thus environmental history is the ecological study of interrelationships between humanity and other