A History of Voluntary Nature Conservation Organisations in New
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Lincoln University Digital Thesis Copyright Statement The digital copy of this thesis is protected by the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand). This thesis may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use: you will use the copy only for the purposes of research or private study you will recognise the author's right to be identified as the author of the thesis and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate you will obtain the author's permission before publishing any material from the thesis. Preserving The Brownies' Portion: A History Of Voluntary Nature Conservation Organisations In New Zealand 1888-1935 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University by L. E. Lochhead Lincoln University 1994 I •.. ! One of the Chief problems of our time is the reconciliation of civilisation and the wild, of business and beauty. We have to overcome the extremists of both sides, those idealists who dwell in the clouds and those "whole-hog" civilisers who would spoil everything that does not conduce to financial gain.... There is an ancient rural myth that one tiny part of every field or garden should be left untilled for the fairy people, who will not dwell where spade or pruning-hook have been. It seems as if there can be too much of cultivation and efficiency .... the brownies' portion should be well guarded. In a young country like this we have inherited riches that are not for our generation alone, but belong as fully to those who come after us. Maurice Hurst, "The Heron's Beach," New Zealand Life, August, 1923, p.13. I !" i A bstract of a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Ph.D. PRESERVING THE BROWNIES' PORTION A HISTORY OF VOLUNTARY NATURE CONSERVATION ORGANISA TIONS IN NEW ZEALAND 1888-1935 The systematic colonisation of New Zealand by Europeans from 1840 onwards led to rapid changes of the natural environment. Inhabited until then by relatively small numbers of Polynesians, New Zealand's insular biogeography made it particularly susceptible to the "j. impact of an advanced western technology and economy. Within less than 50 years of the declaration of British sovereignty, the first organised nature conservation groups had emerged. In contrast to other studies of nature conservation in New Zealand, this thesis examines the succession of small voluntary groups dedicated to the preservation of scenery and protection of wildlife between 1888 and 1935. These groups played an important role in raising public awareness of the values of nature conservation in the face of the dominant views of settler society which was predicated upon the subjugation and exploitation of nature. The first two chapters examine the wider intellectual climate within which the groups arose. Chapter One discusses the key idea which militated against conservation, centering around the doctrine of progress. The second chapter examines the ideas which led to the growing conservation consciousness which was an international phenomenon at the end of the nineteenth century. The influence of romanticism and developments in science promoted by the Darwinian revolution emerge as key factors. The remaining chapters focus on the efforts of individual groups, beginning with the Dunedin and Suburban Reserves Conservation Society. Chapter Four examines the most successful of the nineteenth-century groups, the Taranaki Scenery Preservation Society. The widening of the movement is covered in Chapter Five, which documents the efforts of groups in Auckland, Christchurch, Nelson, Wanganui, and Wellington, though information on all of these is sparse. Chapter Six focuses on an important but unsuccessful campaign to protect lowland forests in the Rai Valley, Marlborough, a conflict which illustrates the difficulties the movement faced. Hitherto best-known of the early groups, Harry Ell's Summit Road Association is discussed in Chapter Seven. iii The final three chapters examine groups which aspired,with varying degrees of success, to be national in scope and which were more scientific in their orientation. The evolving philosophical framework of nature conservation in New Zealand is central to Chapter Eight, which examines the contribution of the first Forest and Bird Protection Society. Members of this Society included the key conservation thinkers of the time, among them Leonard Cockayne, Harry Ell, George Malcolm Thomson, Herbert Guthrie-Smith, and the first notable woman conservationist, Blanche Baughan. Chapter Nine examines the role of the New Zealand Forestry League, which played an important role in the promotion of the New Zealand Forest Service. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the early years of the first of the modem nature conservation groups, the Native Bird Protection Society, known since 1935 as the Forest and Bird Protection Society. Keywords. New Zealand history; mid-nineteenth-early twentieth century; nature conservation; voluntary organisations; scenery preservation; bird protection. : -.. ~'-"-' CONTENTS Abstract 11 Contents IV List of lllustrations and Maps v Introduction 1 1. "Subduing and Replenishing the Earth" : The "Heroic Work" of 10 Colonisation, 1840-1890 2. Towards the Liberation of Nature, 1840-1890 47 3. Beginnings: The Dunedin and Suburban Reserves Conservation 82 Society 4. "The Premier Society of its Type" The Taranaki Scenery 104 Preservation Society 5. The Movement Expands 131 6. The Nelson Scenery Preservation Society and the Battle 160 for the Rai 7. Harry Ell and the Summit Road Association 181 8. Back to the Wilds: The First New Zealand Forest and Bird 192 Protection Society 8.1 Part 1. The Society, Its Formation, Its Goals And Its Achievements 192 8.2 Part 2. The Conservation Philosophy of Key Members 206 8.3 Part 3. Conclusion: Aesthetes And Elitists? 233 9. The New Zealand Forestry League: Preservation and Conservation 239 10. Val Sanderson and the Native Bird Protection Society, 1923-1935: 266 The First of the Modem Conservation Groups Conclusion 296 Acknowledgements 301 Bibliography 302 Appendix 325 ILLUSTRATIONS Following page: C.W. Govett 103 W. H. Skinner 103 Eighteen Miles up the Mokau 115 Meeting of the Waters Reserve 115 H.G.Ell 180 Kennedy's Bush 183 Leonard Cockayne 193 H. Guthrie-Smith 193 G .M. Thomson 217 Sir James Wilson 238 Val Sanderson 265 Sir Thomas Mackenzie 265 MAPS Ronga and Opouri Valleys, Marlborough. Location map 159 Ronga and Opouri Valleys, Marlborough. Topographical map 159 Mt Richmond Forest Park 176 INTRODUCTION The vigour of the conservation movement since the 1970s has tended to obscure the fact that an organised conservation movement in New Zealand dates back to the previous century. The majority of modern conservationists, if asked to pinpoint the beginnings of the movement would probably cite the Manapouri controversy, which began with the launch of a petition by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society in 1960. A third petition on the issue, organised by the same Society in 1970, gathered 264, 907, signatures, the largest petition ever presented to Parliament up to that time. 1 The controversy can justifiably be viewed as the main catalyst within New Zealand for the upsurge in environmental awareness which was a phenomenon throughout the Western World in the early 1970s. Within the space of ajust a few years, the Environmental Defense Society, Ecology Action, the Native Forests Action Council, which evolved from the slightly earlier Beech Forest Action Committee, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and CoEnC02 were new names to contend with in the New Zealand conservation scene, alongside the much earlier Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. In addition, a number of relatively short-lived single issue groups and coalitions formed, including the Campaign for Non-Nuclear Futures, Campaign Power Pole, Save Manapouri Campaign, Save Aramoana Campaign, Campaign for Rational Economic and Environmental Development in New Zealand (CREEDNZ) and Coromandel Watchdog Committee.3 The 70th anniversary celebrations of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society in 1983 served as a timely reminder that the history of organised conservation long preceded the 1970s. A fiftieth anniversary publication of the Federated Mountain Clubs in 1981, outlining that organisation's contributions to the creation and management of national parks, forest parks and the New Zealand walkways system and to the conservation and management of wilderness areas and mountain environments, reminds us that Forest and Bird was not working alone in the period prior to 1970. It is less widely known that these 1. Seven years later the Maruia Declaration exceeded this with 341,160 signatures. 2. CoEnCo was a coalition of environmental groups which evolved into the Environment and Conservation Organisation of New Zealand (ECO). The initiative for the coalition came from Forest and Bird, which convened a meeting in 1971 at which a working group was sel up to try and establish a permanent environmental coalition. The group organised a conference in December 1971 known as the "Conference on Environment and Conservation," from which the name of a the coalition derived. The organisation was formally established at the conference. (R. Wilson, From Manapouri to Aramoana: The Battle/or New Zealand's Environment. Waiwera: Earthworks Press, 1982) 3. For further discussion of these groups and of major environmental controversies of the past two decades see Wilson (1982). 2. groups, which emerged in the early part of the century, built upon the efforts and experience of a number of even earlier groups, for the most patt short-lived, the first of which was founded in the late 1880s. The emergence and achievements of these early conservation societies forms the subject of this thesis. In their first flush of enthusiasm for the movement, many adherents of the modern groups, with the reformist zeal of the newly converted and the typical contempt of the younger generation for the older, were dismissive of the achievements of their antecedents.