Farmer honoured for gifting land

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 11

Farmer honoured for gifting land

Mr T. E. Armstrong, of Akaroa, has been made an honorary member of the Royal. Society for gifting land for a reserve for the regeneration of native bush. The honorary membership is in recognition of Mr Armstrong’s services to natural science in Canterbury by gifting the land, says Mr M. H. Abernathy, honorary secretary of the society’s Canterbury- branch, in a letter to Mr Armstrong.

In 1971, about 36.5 ha of native bush and surrounding land, including a steep, rocky gully on the hillside above Stoney Bay, was transferred from Mr Armstrong’s farm to the Lands and .Survey Department for a reserve. An extension to the

reserve is being negotiated by the department with the Armstrong family. For Mr Armstrong, the gifting of the land for a reserve fulfilled a wish of his great-grandfather, Captain George Armstrong, who had left about 81ha of the original family farm in native bush. Mr Armstrong said that Captain Armstrong had wished to keep the area reserved so that future generations could see what' the original forest in the area looked like. Much of the original 81ha had been burned in an accidental fire early this century and some of the trees had been blown down during the Wahine storm.

Mr Armstrong said, “but the secondary growth is coming through and so we have had the joy of watching the forest regenerate. There are hundreds of totaras and native cedars coming up through the snowgrass.” The department regards the reserve as the best surviving remnant of the former beech and totara forest of south-east Banks Peninsula. The reserve is the home of bellbirds, fantails, waxeyes, grey warblers, tomtits, and native pigeons. Mr Armstrong said that tuis had also lived in the reserve. The reserve has been classified as a nature reserve, which means that there are no public walkways through the bush.