The Field Legacy

Forest and Bird, Issue 307, 1 February 2003, Page 48

The Field Legacy

Though only small, the Field Reserve celebrates a man who looms large in the history of the Waikanae district of the Kapiti Coast. The property of less than four hectares was gifted to the Society in 1973 by Lydia Pharazyn (née Field) shortly before her death and is named for her father, a lawyer and sometime Member of Parliament for Otaki, William (Willie) Hughes Field.

From the early 1890s Willie began acquiring land from local Maori landowners when they defaulted payment on money he loaned them, and also by buying property then mortgaging it to buy more land. In this way he gradually amassed considerable landholdings and became the biggest landowner in the Waikanae district. A founding member in 1903 of the Scenery Preservation Society, he had an interest in native forests and botany, inherited from his father H.C Field, an enthusiastic tramper and author of a book on New Zealand ferns. Much of the surviving native forests around Waikanae, including Muaupoko and Waikanae Scenic Reserves, are due to Willie Field’s efforts. Despite his interest in the natural world, Field also exploited it — through sawmilling, harvesting flax, draining wetlands, importing marram grass for dune stabilisation to enable subdivision and by diverting the Waimeha Stream. His name is

also remembered on the Kapiti coast in Field’s Track, Field Hut, Field Peak and Field Way. The Field reserve is located on State Highway One, opposite and immediately north of the Kapiti Island Lookout. The reserve protects kohekohe forest with mahoe and nikau, a forest type rare in the Wellington region and the North Island generally. There are no tracks in the reserve.