A Naturalist of Two Worlds

Forest and Bird, Issue 298, 1 November 2000, Page 10

A Naturalist of Two Worlds

hen the naturalist and author Ronald Lockley died earlier this year his British obituarists found so much to say of his early years, that at least one major newspaper failed to record his last 27 years in New Zealand. In fact, Ronald Lockley wrote often of New Zealand, lending his reputation and advocacy skills to Forest and Bird and the conservation cause. When Ronald Lockley died aged 97, earlier this year, the Society lost its oldest distinguished life member. From a lifetime perspective, it’s possible a year as chair of Auckland Forest and Bird may not have added up to much in a sum of his campaigns and popular books. Yet his contribution to conservation in New Zealand was sufficient for the Society of the time to elect him a distinguished life member. His English roots are well pre-

served in some of the most popular nature books of his time: several years living a castaway life on the Welsh island of Skokholm made him expert in the lives of seabirds. He published about the island life in The Island, and his Shearwaters (1942) is still a definitive study. He was also involved in the production of a pioneer natural history film, The Private Life of the Gannet, made by Sir Alexander Korda. R.M. Lockley’s books include studies of whales and dolphins, birds, and a biography of Gilbert White, author of the eighteenthcentury classic Natural History of Selborne. Like White, Ronald Lockley was a field naturalist, who learnt his biology and ecology while farming. The author of Watership Down, Richard Adams, freely acknowledged how that anthropomorphic tale of life among the rabbits sprang from Lockley’s pioneer study The Private Life of

the Rabbit (1964). The book followed years of observations, particularly at Orielton, now a field studies centre, and the setting of his 1977 portrait Orielton. In British conservation he was a council member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and involved in efforts to create nature reserves and protect the Welsh coast and islands. His decision to settle in New Zealand in the 1970s is said to have been partly influenced by a disappointment over the British government’s failure to protect his beloved coast. Yet he was already alive to our problems, writing the book Man Against Nature in 1970 for a Survival

television special about New Zealand’s wildlife and the wasting of our forests. In Auckland, Ronald Lockley lived overlooking an extensive sandspit reaching into the Tamaki estuary. When a rubbish dump was planned for it, he roused neighbours to establish yet another of his nature reserves. Tahuna-Torea, with its visiting waders and wetland birds, is in some ways a memorial to his local efforts: his book The House Above the Sea (1980) draws on columns he wrote there for the Auckland Star. In recent years, Ronald Lockley lived in the Bay of Plenty, where he died.