Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 118
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| Outward Bound Cutter Marlborough Sounds -summer 1973-4 |
Ridgway
was in Europe and the Middle East from 1968 to 1972 and on his return landed a
job at Outward Bound in Anakiwa in
the Marlborough Sounds. This school was established in 1962. It threw its young
men, (it is no longer gender discriminatory), into a rigorous programme that provided
experience and training in sailing, canoeing and exploring the local bush terrain.
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| River crossing - Pelorus River |
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| Crossing the Wall - Outward Bound |
In
1976 Ridgway joined the Lands and Survey Department as a National Park Ranger
then moved on to the Department of Conservation when that was formed in 1987.
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| Ridgway - Mt Aspring NP |
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| Ridgway (right) Mt Aspiring NP |
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| Coming down from the tops |
He was
initially stationed at Makarora above Wanaka as a ranger at Mt Aspiring National Park; before settling at Ohakune for
six years.
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| Pipiriki on the Whanganui River 1984 |
Then in 1984
he went to Pipiriki on the Whanganui river as Senior Conservation Officer.
There were two permanent staff here
and a further two at the other end of the Park in Taumaranui.
By the early
1990’s he had become Field Centre Manager for the area and was working from Whanganui.
Part of Ridgway’s strength in working
here was the strong rapport he developed with community groups. These
included running a popular Summer Nature Programme, along with Department
volunteer programmes and then sitting on the committees of local organisations including Forest & Bird,
Bushy Park Trust, Tramping club, Historic Places and the Friends of the
Whanganui River and Shoreline.
As these
photographs indicate Ridgway has an unrivalled experience in exploring the back
country of New Zealand. He has done all the great walks including – Milford,
Keppler, Routeburn, Rakiura, Heaphy, Able Tasman, Waikaremoana, Tongariro
Northern Circuit, Whanganui River, Matemateonga and the
Tararua’s.
While he
might be affable and supportive of those contributing to conservation, he wouldn’t
take nonsense from reprobates in the Park. Sometimes the Whanganui River
itself, could parlay them into his hands.
We were jet boating up the River one
weekend and found another jet boat marooned on a shingle bank with a flat
battery. They’d been there overnight and Ridgway recognised one by description. He had been
at the John Coull hut further upriver, abused the warden and left without
paying. He was charged, judged then sentenced to a long dressing down and a
hefty fine, which had to be paid up before Ridgway agreed to haul out jumper cables to get the boat
started downstream.
This
tradition of intimate contact between our conservation specialists and the New Zealand Public
ended as Ridgway came to the end of his working life in 2004. The Conservation Department was restricted
to what conservative government was pleased to call core business. Many local branches were closed and these delicately
tendered connections were severed. Years of budget cutting, along with two
destructive restructurings - the
second designed to reverse the damage caused by the first, has left staff
demoralised and conservation in New Zealand lacking clear leadership.
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| Ridgway - Summer Nature Programme Pipiriki |
This is
beginning to take a political toll as a recent government announcement indicates. It wants to rid the country of introduced
pests by the year 2050. This is a derisible fantasy dreamed up by government media advisers to counter continued high
polling from the Green Party. The reality
is that these Government media advisors now probably rival in number, our working conservation
staff…
Susie wants
Gordon Lightfoot on today’s post and who I am to say no! -The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
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