Public honours for conservationists

Forest and Bird, Issue 293, 1 August 1999, Page 5

Public honours for conservationists

for conservation, Jim Holdaway of Auckland has been created a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and Lesley Shand of North Canterbury, has been made a Member of the same order. At 81, Jim Holdaway has only recently retired from the Auckland Conservation Board and he is still chairman of the city’s active Tree Council, and a trustee of several conservation groups in the region. A sometime local body politician (awarded an OBE as Mayor of the old Northcote Borough, now part of North Shore City), he was a member of the enlightened group who promoted the concept of regional parks during the 1950s and 1960s. (That heritage is detailed in the article ‘Auckland’s Regional Parks’ in this number of Forest e Bird). Jim Holdaway is a farmer to this day, with land on the outskirts of Auckland, but he still lives in Northcote alongside a striking patch of kahikatea forest, saved from the subdivision of an earlier farm which he took up after the Second World War. (He was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross while with Bomber Command). Always a man of ideas about doing things better while protecting the environment, he recalls having promoted the first underground electrical power reticulation scheme for a new urban subdivision in New Zealand, while Mayor of Northcote. A founding member, he was 20 years on the Auckland Regional Authority, six years its deputy chairman and, at various times, chairman for finance and policy, regional planning, parks and urban transport. His position inside the political establishment gave him scope and leadership to work for better conservation in the region. These initiatives were recognised nationally when he became a founding member of the Environmental Council, the Urban Transport Council, the Nature Conservation Council and the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority. | n honours recognising work

A particular interest in the conservation of mangroves led to several appointments with technical committees here and abroad, working for their protection in Asia and the Pacific. After 19 years as a member of the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park Board he was a logical appointment to the new Auckland Conservation Board in 1990. The then Minister of Conservation, Denis Marshall, appointed him convenor of the technical working party which recommended a Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, though he notes wryly that the present bill isn’t the conserva-tion-based park he and his colleagues recommended. Retirement is not high on Jim Holdaway’s list of things to do. He remains a Fellow of the World Wide Fund for Nature, a trustee of two groups concerned with the restoration of islands in the Hauraki Gulf, and member of many other organisations. Forest and Bird recognised his achievements in the region with an Old Blue award in 1994. A Canterbury conservationist, Lesley Shand, has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her conservation work. ‘Lesley’s huge and generally unpaid contribution to conservation, particularly in North Canterbury and the West Coast, is greatly valued by Forest and Bird in the region, writes Eugenie Sage, field officer of the Society in Christchurch. Lesley Shand has been an active committee member of North Canterbury Forest and Bird for many years, and prior to that was active in the Native Forest Action Council (now the Maruia Society). In the North Canterbury branch, she is wellknown as a trip leader, and for her conservation advocacy under the Resource Management Act. She has also served as a member of several public advisory bodies, including the North Canterbury Conservation Board. ‘Lesley has contributed significantly to the establishment of the Hurunui "mainland island’, promoting the ecological significance of the Hurunui-Lake

Sumner area, and the need to protect wildlife populations with more effective predator control, says Eugenie Sage. Lesley Shand was the subject of a profile article in the Forest & Bird journal in November 1993. Also recently honoured is a Wellington-based benefactor of Forest and Bird, Ron Greenwood.

He becomes a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services which include founding the New Zealand Institute of Management and the Parkinsonism Society. The Ron D. and E.A. Greenwood Environmental Trust regularly advertises in this journal, offering financial support for conservation projects.