WRPS Patrons
John Edgar – RIP
John Edgar
We are very sad to tell you that John, our WRPS president of 22 years, died at Auckland Hospital on 3 April.
John dedicated his life to protecting the environment and especially his beloved Waitakere Ranges with its significant heritage and ecological values.
John had unconditional commitment to and responsibility for both Waitakere Ranges Protection Society and to the protection of the Waitakere Ranges and
made a long and effective contribution. The legacy of collaboration, determination and inspiration to achieve permanent protection of the Waitakere Ranges left by John Edgar is something for which future generations of New Zealanders will always be grateful. John Edgar gave the Waitakere Ranges a voice. He will be deeply missed.
John gave the Waitakere Ranges a voice.
John Edgar was on the committee of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society (WRPS) since 1996 and since 1998 has been President making him the Society’s longest-serving president at 22 years, retiring in 2020 due to ill health.
He was a long-term resident of Karekare and was a sculptor with many public sculptures to his credit in Auckland, Waitakere, and the United Kingdom.
John had dedicated his life to the preservation of the Waitakere Ranges and its significant heritage and ecological values. Many issues were tackled during John’s tenure as President, and he led the Society through an extremely challenging period when the Waitakere Ranges was threatened by subdivision and development.
John always had an unconditional commitment to and responsibility for both WRPS and to the protection of the Waitakere Ranges and made a long and effective contribution.
Under his leadership the Society achieved permanent legal protection for the Waitakere Ranges through the enactment of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act 2008, a piece of legislation designed to protect the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area from further subdivision and development. It was the result of 35 years of campaigning by the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society.
In the years before the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act came into being there was a huge amount of work that John, on behalf of the Society, with the support of legal counsel and planning experts, put into challenging a multitude of Resource Consent applications, as well as putting considerable work into submitting on Regional Parks Management Plans and District Plans.
In January 1999, John Edgar anticipating the battles to come, made an appeal for funds to fight in the Environment Court. WRPS had had a busy year in 1999, appealing eight of the 106 points of the Waitakere City Council’s (WCC) proposed District Plan.
Drastic changes in subdivision rules in a Structure Plan by WCC led to the Society appealing the decision to the Environmental Court. Also over the course of this year there was a project managed by WRPS in collaboration with local iwi, DOC, ARC, and Landcare scientists, which focused on invasive wasp species. This project was inspired by a hearing from Dr Jacqueline Beggs of Landcare about the impact of their activities on insects in the forest.
In 2000, WRPS worked alongside ratepayer groups in Piha, Huia, Laingholm, Karekare to express concern at new resource consent applications which threatened to greatly change the areas in which they were proposed. The Society had a great deal of work to do preparing submissions and challenging the Council on individual issues in the appeals to the Environmental Court. Millennial Medals were given to many members of the Society including John Edgar. The possibility of a Waitakere Heritage Park was revived at the AGM of 2000.
There were two important subdivision proposals in 2000 that WRPS challenged the Council on in the Environment Court. One was a 14-lot proposal in Titirangi, the other was in Karekare. In September 2000 WRPS was able to announce an important victory concerning the proposal in Titirangi, when the Environmental Court cancelled the subdivision consent. This was a major victory as it established some important principles that would be applied in subsequent cases. The second case was won when the Environment Court upheld the 4-hectare rule and disallowed the Council’s intention to reduce the subdivision size. It was a significant year on many counts, and by the end of the year the Commissioner for the Environment began a fruitful liaison with the Society to promote the concept of a heritage area.
The legal appeal undertaken on behalf of WRPS to the Environmental Court regarding the Auckland Unitary Plan (the Auckland Combined Plan) (2016) is another important and significant example of the notable work and effort put into various achievements WRPS has had under John’s leadership.
Another notable action was that John Edgar invited Morgan Williams, the then Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to visit the Waitakere Ranges, which resulted in his locally famous description of the situation as ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and a study report (June 2001).
John’s leadership has resulted in endless successful legal challenges to inappropriate developments or activities within the Waitakere Ranges. Under his leadership WRPS have spoken out on a huge range of issues from the national response to Kauri Dieback, fighting to reinstate general tree protection, collaborating on submissions presented to the hearings on the then proposed Auckland Unitary Plan, sharing costs of expert witnesses during the planning hearing for the proposed replacement water treatment. The countless hours which have gone into attention to detail in writing submissions and being prepared to take legal recourse where necessary cannot be underestimated.
John Edgar’s willingness to give of his time and energy as well as providing the resources of the Society to those needing support has been pivotal to the success of many local conservation campaigns, whether they were about a single tree or many hectares of native bush.
In addition to all the battles the Society has fought under John’s leadership, the following books were also produced :
Waitakere Ranges: Ranges of Inspiration: Nature, History, Culture – Edited by Bruce and Trixie Harvey 2006
The book is a collection of essays, articles, art and writing from over 70 contributors. The book was a long-term project of 25 years that was finally realised in 2006.
Saving the Ranges: The first 40 years of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society – Edited by Trixie and Bruce Harvey
The book tells of the many people who have contributed to the conservation and protection of the Ranges and makes it clear the work of the Society would not have flourished without the hundreds of members who have given their support.
Making a stand- the History of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act 2008 written by Wayne Thompson is an E-book format that is currently undergoing production with publication due very soon.
John Edgar has always worked collaboratively with other organisations to achieve the goals of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society. This is exemplified by the Society’s support for Te Kawerau ā Maki in placing the rāhui onto the Waitakere Ranges forest to prevent further spread of kauri dieback disease. John worked alongside Forest & Bird, The Tree Council and Friends of Regional Parks as well as scientists and biosecurity experts from around the country and a huge outpouring of public support for Te Kawerau ā Maki to ultimately secure Auckland Council’s agreement to enforce the rāhui and close tracks in the regional park until they are upgraded.
The legacy of collaboration, determination and inspiration to achieve permanent protection of the Waitakere Ranges left by John Edgar is something for which future generations of New Zealanders will always be grateful. John Edgar has given the Waitakere Ranges a voice.
Anna Fomison
President
Waitākere Ranges Protection Society
Dr Richard Bellamy CNZM
Professor Bellamy was an early visitor to the West Coast beaches. His father had been a tramper who camped at remote O’Neills Bay with his young family during the 1940s and 1950s. The family negotiated a tenancy with the farmer who owned the beach at that time and took their tents down to the sand dunes.
Later they took an old army hut down on a konaki, providing a base for their summer holidays. The place had always been special and continued to be so as the next generation of Bellamys spent their holidays at this remote beach. As a young university lecturer in London, Dick remembers having a nightmare that a bulldozer was coming to build a Spanish type villa on their dunes at O’Neills.
When he returned to New Zealand he became an enthusiastic member of the Society. At that stage he was a lecturer in zoology at the University of Auckland, but later rose to be Head of the School of Biological Sciences that was formed in 2000 with the amalgamation of the departments of Botany, Zoology and Cell Biology, and Dean of the Science Faculty. His involvement with the Society went back to its earliest days where he was Secretary to the first committee in 1973, and on the committee during the 1970s and until 1985. He was responsible for adding much scientific depth and credibility to the appeals and submissions of that period.
Dick Bellamy
Early members remember him as enabling the Society to present a sophisticated and knowledgeable face to bureaucracy at a time when political planners were inclined to see the Society as a bunch of hippies. Maintaining his interest in the Society, he became its Patron until the present and still offers the experience of many years of advocacy for the conservation cause.
Dr Trixie Harvey
Dr Trixie Harvey
It is with great sadness that we inform you of the death of our dear friend Trixie Harvey, who passed away yesterday surrounded by her family.
Trixie was on The Waitakere Ranges Protection Society committee from 2002 to 2015. Together with husband Bruce she edited The Waitakere Ranges – Nature, History, Culture (2006) and researched and wrote the history of the Society Saving the Ranges (2013). As a plant scientist her research into native plants, ecology and genetics led her to become a champion of conservation especially in the Waitakere Ranges.
She was a member of the Society for Horticultural Science, The Auckland Museum Institute, Forest and Bird Society, Auckland Botanical Society, the West Auckland Historical Society and Friends of Whatipu. In the past few years she convened the Waitakere Ranges Conservation Network that brought together the many community groups doing conservation in the Waitakere Ranges.
Our sincere condolences go to her husband Bruce and her family and friends.
Right Honourable Jonathan Hunt ONZ
RIP 1939-2024
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2008, the Right Honourable Jonathan Hunt was the local MP for New Lynn, which in the early days included part of the Waitakere Ranges. Jonathan has been one of the longest-serving MPs in New Zealand.
Jonathan Hunt
He lived at Karekare for most of this time and actively supported the Society from its inception. In 1973 he responded to activists’ concerns by suggesting and drafting a Private Member’s Bill aimed at permanent protection of the Ranges, an aim that was always dear to the hearts of Society members. Unfortunately this Bill needed the support of the local authority (at that time Waitemata City or the ARA), but it did not have that support in those environmentally unaware times.
However, the idea did not die and it was revived by many presidents and speakers to the Society over the next 30 years, until finally, with the help and support of both the WCC and the ARC, a bill to protect the Ranges was presented to the House by the then Waitakere MP Lynne Pillay and became law in 2008.
By that time Jonathan, at his retirement, had spent three years as the New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He was occupying that post when the Bill was finally passed; he rejoiced with WRPS at the final fruition of his idea.
Lynne Pillay
Waitakere Ranges Protection Society is delighted to introduce our new patron, former Member of Parliament for Waitakere, Lynne Pillay.
Lynne Pillay
A familiar face to many WRPS members, Lynne says one of the highlights of her political career was her involvement in the passing of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act (2008). Lynne was responsible for the passage through Parliament of that Act which she says, “was the culmination of so much work by so many,” and the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society have played a vital advocacy and leadership role for decades”.
Lynne’s other areas of interest are around social justice and advocating for opportunities to ensure all New Zealanders are able to reach their full potential. Lynne works for the Housing Foundation, a charitable trust which assists low and medium income families to purchase their first home.
Lynne is proud to have played her part in ensuring the iconic Waitakere Ranges are protected for generations t o come whilst in Parliament and continues that trajectory in this new role as Patron for the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society.