R. H. Carter

Forest and Bird, Volume 15, Issue 2, 1 May 1984, Page 45

R. H. Carter

We record with regret the death, aged 92, of a past long serving secretary of the Society who took office in 1947 when Mr R. C. Aston was president and served during the terms of Mr A. P. Harper and later Mr R. C. Nelson In his ten years of office Mr Carter saw great changes, and the formation of 12 sections, (now branches) widened the Society’s influence. He organised the public meeting in the Wellington Concert Chamber at which Professor McGregor spoke and showed slides on Waipoua Kauri Forest which was later made a reserve. He arranged "Nature Question Time" broadcasts on 2YA and both the president ‘Kauri’ and himself "‘Weka’ were comperes of the programme. Dr R. Falla, Dr J. Salmon, Dr C. A. Fleming and Mr A. L. Poole cooperated in giving the answers in their various fields. School groups were formed and the children involved numbered between three and four thousand. In a further effort to gain the interest of this junior membership Forest and Bird ran a serial ‘Wonderful Wanderings of Wiremu Double-you Weka’ by Mr Carter’s daughter. Oil pollution became apparent even 30 years ago and he did some considerable research into the problem and his findings were then published in the journal. The work involved in these activities together with that of editorship of Forest and Bird was a heavy load and this retired naval officer who had served so faithfully as secretary resigned at the end of 1956, after 9 years in office.- N.E.D.