Mr L. W. McCaskill

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 8

Mr L. W. McCaskill

Mr Lancelot William McCaskill, who was widely recognised for his work in agriculture and conservation, died in Christchurch yesterday after a two-month illness. He was 85. Mr McCaskill won several awards and scholarships, the most recent being the Sir Peter Scott award for conservation merit. It was presented in November, 1984, at the Madrid assembly of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. The same organisation had bestowed life membership on Mr McCaskill during its general assembly in Christchurch in 1981. Mr McCaskill was born at Winchester, in South Canterbury. He attended Lincoln College (then Canterbury Agricultural College) in 1919 and 1920, and graduated with a diploma in agricultural science.

In 1923 he gained a Bachelor of Agriculture degree from Canterbury University College and in 1929 a Master of Agriculture degree with first-class honours in agricultural economics at Otago University. As agricultural instructor for the Auckland Education Board from 1923 to 1927, Mr McCaskill persuaded teachers in the Thames Valley district to make native plants a feature of nature study. In co-opera-

tion with a farmer he established a nursery from which hundreds of native plants were given to schools and to pupils for their home gardens. When he became a lecturer in nature study and agriculture at Dunedin Teachers’ College in 1928, Mr McCaskill made native plant study the basis of his course. At that time he studied the damage to bush and sub-alpine flora by deer, and was secretary of the Dunedin committee advocating their control. When he took a similar position at Christchurch Teachers’ College, Mr McCaskill continued his teaching policy, and in organised excursions with students he collected 400 species and varieties of plants to grow at the college. In 1939 Mr McCaskill was awarded a Carnegie travelling scholarship to enable him to study rural education and soil conservation in Canada, the United States, and Britain. On his return he was appointed chairman of the soil conservation committee of the Canterbury Progress League. For the New Zealand centenary in 1940, Mr McCaskill took a leading part in organising a scheme for schools to concentrate on native plants. As an original member of the Royal New Zealand For-

est and Bird Protection Society, Mr McCaskill lectured widely on the interdependence of forests and birds, and the need to protect both. Because of his studies of damage to vegetation and the consequent erosion, Mr McCaskill helped prepare the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act. In 1944 he became a founder member of the North Canterbury Catchment Board. Also in 1944 Mr McCaskill was appointed lecturer in rural education at Lincoln College. Later that year the college presented him with the Bledisloe Medal, awarded each year to former students of the college who materially assist farming in New Zealand or advance the country’s interests. In 1951 Mr McCaskill was presented the Loder Cup by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture, in recognition of his work to protect and arouse interest in native flora. At that time he was arranging the fencing of a reserve at Castle Hill for the protection of the Castle Hill buttercup. In 1948, only 32 of the plants existed, being among the rarest plants in the world. From 1948 to 1957, Mr McCaskill was a member of the Riccarton Bush Board as a representative of the Royal Society of New Zea-

land. In 1956 he was asked to help set up a faculty of agriculture at a new university in Indonesia. Mr McCaskill continued his conservation work after his retirement in 1965. He was asked by the National Parks Authority, of which he was a member, to survey scenic reserves. By the end of 1970 he had visited 691 of the 960 reserves. In 1972 he was asked by the Minister of Lands to catalogue the reserves. The project developed into 12 separate booklets on reserves, one for each land district. Soon after he retired from the National Parks Authority in 1968 he was at loggerheads with the organisation when it and the Arthur’s Pass National Park Board agreed to the building of a road at the top of the pass. The road would have destroyed the tarns, a famous botanical area. His battle was successful and the road was not built. Mr McCaskill wrote four books after his retirement, including one on the rehabilitation of Molesworth station, and “Hold This Land,” a history of soil conservation in New Zealand. In 1978 Mr McCaskill was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science from Lincoln College during its centennial celebrations.