Varied Interests at Whangaparaoa Camp

Forest and Bird, Issue 184, 1 May 1972, Page 10

Varied Interests at Whangaparaoa Camp

LAST summer's North Island camp on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula was attended by 190 people, including a good number of children. The main body of campers were accommodated at Peter Snell Youth Village, several others at Fisherman's Rock motor camp, and a few at motels. Rostered duties were kept to a minimum and it was gratifying to see that everybody dealt cheerfully with the work assigned to them.

MR BERNARD TEAGUE, of Wairoa, was asked to take charge of children’s programmes. With the help of Miss Edith Williamson, of Gordonton, and Mr Eric Lennie, of Wellington, he devised interests for them, and he also gave some books as prizes.

On the final night a varied and enjoyable concert was given under the leadership of Mrs Daphne Mitchell and Mrs Daphne Mcßae. This final night also included the Moira Cox Memorial Slide Competition, entries for which were judged by Mr Teague and Mr A. Thomas. The evening ended with the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”. A party of 21 led by Mr Stewart Gray, of Tirau, left at 4.30 a.m. next day for an aftercamp trip to Little Barrer Island, from Friday

to Sunday. A few others went to the Society’s cottage at Onetangi, on Waiheke Island. CAMP DIARY Friday Mr J. V. Jerram, the Auckland Branch chairman, made a special trip from his holiday cottage at Taupo to welcome the campers on the opening night, Friday 7 January. As many people had travelled long distances during the day, there was no organised programme to keep them up late. Saturday (Reported by Mrs Daphne Mcßae, Wellington) On the first day of the camp a tour of Auckland was arranged. A stop was made in Birkenhead to give the campers the chance to see the native plant nursery of Mr and Mrs W. Fisher. Brief stops were made at Eden Garden and at the summit of Mount Eden to see the lovely panorama of Auckland laid out clearly below. Our lunch stop was Cornwall Park. We passed through Puriri Drive on the way in and Pohutukawa Drive on the way out. A brief address on Sir John Logan Campbell’s plan in establishing the park gave us more interest in some unusual trees and in Acacia Cottage, where he had once lived; it now stands in Cornwall Park, and is the oldest wooden house in Auckland. We returned to Whangaparaoa Peninsula via Onehunga and Henderson.

In the evening we saw a series of colour slides arranged by Mr Geoffrey Roche in an unusual and original way to emphasise the need for conservation, and this completed an excellent day.

Sunday

The tide being somewhat unco-operative, Professor J. Morton came to breakfast at the camp, ready to set off immediately afterward to conduct a walk along the shore below the camp headquarters at Peter Snell Youth Village. He turned up a host of creatures, under stones and in rock pools, and spoke about their habits. Children and adults alike found this a fascinating activity.

We were back in camp in time for an informal religious service out of doors at

11.15 a.m. conducted by the versatile Professor Morton and Mr Bernard Teague, who gave an address. The afternoon was left unplanned and in the evening Professor Morton was back again to give a discussion-provoking talk on conservation. The crayon in his facile hand sped over the flip-sheets as he spoke. Monday (By Mrs Peggy Morgan, Waitomo) A large party of family, groups left for a bus and boat trip to Kawau Island, calling at Parry Park on the way to see a giant kauri tree some 800 years old, a ricker at the time of the coming of the Maori. Then after a delightful cruise among tree-clad islands the party disembarked at Hokimai Bay. Back at Mansion House Bay a picnic lunch was eaten under the welcome shade of a Moreton Bay fig tree. Some of the party walked up to see the old copper mine, long disused, and the splendid view across the sparkling sea. Afterward Mr R. Fisher, the ranger on Kawau, explained that there are five species of wallaby on the island, one of which is rather rare. In the evening Mr Jack Diamond gave an absorbing account of the early days in the Waitakere Ranges. Tuesday (By Mrs Hilda Read, Auckland) The route for the bus trip lay around the upper Waitemata Harbour through Riverhead, then via Taupaki and Waitakere to our parking ground overlooking Cascade Creek. After lunch the climbers, including a good proportion of children and led by Graham Gruzellier, began the winding ascent of Upper Kauri Track under increasing numbers of kauris of all sizes to where it joins the Loop Track. To complete the outing the bus took us via Scenic Drive to Titirangi, then by way of Great South Road through Henderson and Riverhead back to camp, which gave us a very comprehensive coverage of the area.

Mr Sander, a ranger of the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park Board, spoke in the evening about the park and showed slides of the islands included in it.

Wednesday (By Miss Mary Taylor, Wellington) We found Rangitoto Island to be a lovely green island almost completely covered by trees large and small, most of which were pohutukawas. A belt of these lovely trees bordered the shoreline and were partly in flower. We set out on a scoria track to climb to the summit. Not far from the beginning of the track was a shaded “garden” of kidney ferns. Further up the path to the right were some caves which marked the place of one-time lava streams. Wednesday evening’s speaker was Mr E. G. Turbott, director of the Auckland Institute and Museum, who gave an illustrated talk on the way some native birds have adapted to considerable change of habitat.

Thursday (By Mrs Pen Smith, Whangarei) Mr Mead, a retired waterworks engineer, took us on a wonderful scenic walk along the Mercer Bay Track. We turned corners, saw tremendous sheer walls of black rock plunging down to white breakers 300 ft below, had glimpses of rocky' bays and black sand, and wandered in and out of pretty secondgrowth bush. Mr Mead showed us many plants. Of particular interest was a prostrate hebe, a rare celmisia perching like an alpine plant on bare rock, and a white-flowering forget-me-not, all of which are found only in this small area of the world. It was interesting to be shown the local coastal type of toetoe.

Second Morges Manifesto

HTEN years ago the Morges Manifesto was J- issued by 16 of the world’s leading scientists, naturalists, and businessmen, who were concerned at the rapidly increasing devastation of wild nature. The manifesto led to the founding of the World Wildlife Fund and an increase in the scale of activities of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

A second Morges Manifesto was issued at the time of the tenth anniversary celebration of the World Wildlife Fund in Lausanne, Switzerland, last September. This manifesto is reproduced below:

“Man has now seen the world from space. Earth is a tiny island, an oasis of life, the only known place in the universe where Man can thrive. But the web of life can exist only in the thin layer of air, water, and soil of the planet’s surface.

“Man recklessly despoils this, his only home, misusing and overexploiting its finite resources and straining the delicate lifesustaining mechanisms, threatening not only the quality of life but Man’s very survival. Underlying this critical development is the uncontrolled expansion of the human population and its ever-increasing demands and impact on the environment.

“Vast deserts bear testimony to Man’s mishandling of once-rich resources. Verdant

forests, with their essential regulatory functions affecting air, water, and soil, have been changed into barren lands. The oceans and fresh waters have been poisoned and their teeming life threatened. Despite these dire warnings, Man has not halted, but has accelerated the wanton destruction of his heritage.

“This critical situation is of such vital importance and urgency as to command the highest attention of the world’s leaders and responsible citizens throughout the human community. Conservation of the environment provides a new ethic to guide future action leading to the well-being of present and future generations and the health of the world.

“Action must be taken now and it must involve all of us. Our demands must be controlled and wise use made of our dwindling resources. Pollution must be halted at its source. Large areas of our surroundings must be conserved in a natural state, not only for wildlife and wild places, but for the long-term social, educational, cultural, and economic benefits of mankind.

“The signatories of this Second Morges Manifesto appeal to all men and women of the world to double and redouble their efforts to guarantee the quality of the environment and of all life on earth.”

Combating Spread of Pollution and Litter

By the President

T>OLLUTION and litter are two aspects of modern life our Society is very concerned about. Pollution of the air we breathe, the water we need for our daily round, and of the sea are all matters of vital importance not only for our comfort but for our very existence.

Recently Rotorua residents were disturbed by palls of smoke from fires consuming some thousands of acres of native bush. These fires were not only polluting the atmosphere; without doubt they were destroying a great number of birds and also destroying plants which do so much to restore the oxygen to the air we breathe.

Each day we are pouring immense volumes of pollutants into the atmosphere. All over the world industry is extracting from the

atmosphere tremendous quantities of oxygen and, at the same time, in the name of progress polluting the ocean and thereby destroying the plankton, which produces about 70 percent of the oxygen we need to continue living. This is something we are indeed concerned about.

We are concerned also about litter. As a Society we are mainly concerned about litter in our parks and reserves, because if it is not checked very soon, it will make these places unsightly and almost revolting to visit.

Our Society must do everything in its power to support the organisations which have been set up to deal with these threats not only to our well-being but to the very existence of our children and their children. I hope to deal at greater length with these matters in future issues.

Menace of Browsing Animals Affirmed

COMMENTING in the “Christchurch Star” recently on an article by Dr R. A. Falla about the effects of introduced browsing mammals on native plants and birds M. J. A. Bulfin and P. Wardle, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, stated: “The report gives a misleading impression as to the extent of damage to vegetation, at least as quoted. “Studies of the effects, well documented by photographs, historical records, and careful measurements would fill tomes; we shall confine ourselves to two points. One is the claim that native plants have an inherent resistance to browsing. Some may have, but there are many species which seem to possess little or no resistance whatsoever, and what their nearest relatives do in Australia or New Guinea is irrelevant. Examples are the mountain ribbonwood, mountain five-finger, Mount Cook ‘lily’, both northern and southern rata, and scarlet

mistletoe. These plants will all become very rare, or even extinct, if present trends continue. “The article also states that damage to vegetation has been over-rated. This is an insupportable generalisation. Degree of damage varies widely, depending on the kinds of introduced animals present, their abundance, and the nature of the vegetation, soil, and topography. However, we know of valleys where the snowgrass and most of the mountain scrub have already been replaced by low turf, and of other localities where even native forest is being replaced by shrubs and herbs, as the old trees are killed by opossums, and the seedlings destroyed by deer. While we do not wish to compete with Dr Falla on his ornithological home ground, we would be surprised if changes of this magnitude occur without accompanying changes in the bird fauna.”