A decade of work on a memorial heritage park will be marked at a celebration on Saturday.
The charitable trust that manages Pendergrast Memorial Heritage Park was formed in 2013, but plans to mark its 10th anniversary in November were scuppered by bad weather.
There is a silver lining, however, and the celebration is now part of Envirohub’s month-long Sustainable Backyards programme.
The land was gifted by Jim Pendergrast in memory of his late wife, Ngaire.
Jim, who died in 2017, was a well-known farmer, historian and conservationist, and the family lived on a Mangatoi Rd farm. For years he fought to preserve the nearby Ōtānewainuku forest from logging. In 2002, he became a founding trustee of the Ōtānewainuke Kiwi Trust and made a huge contribution to the establishment of the intensive pest management network that now protects the flora and fauna of Ōtānewainuku.
Jim’s son Hans recalls his father’s passion for the environment and his desire to see a place where young people could learn about and experience the outdoors.
“He had always been aware of the need for conservation, but it was really my granddad [John] who got him started. He grew up in Te Whaiti, a sawmilling town, and Dad saw this mass destruction of rimu and matai as the sawmills just levelled the countryside.
“When they came to Mangatoi, they utilised the rimu logs lying around, but both of them had that background that they were not going to touch the reserves, the forest that had been set aside which was all of Ōtānewainuku - they were going to do everything they had to to make sure it wasn’t touched.
“My granddad and dad were part of a community that stood up and prevented the developers from chopping down Ōtānewainuku.”
He says that gave Jim an inbuilt conservation ethic that sat side by side with an enjoyment of being in the forest.
“He used to take us there as kids and I’ve taken my kids camping based on that experience, so there’s been the whole generational thing of really enjoying the forest and appreciating it for what it is.”
Jim didn’t just want to share that with his family, he wanted to provide somewhere for the community to learn.
The land was bought from a neighbour after Ngaire died.
Students from Toi Ohomai at the Pendergrast Heritage Memorial Park.
“He had it in his heart to do it as a memory to Mum, but the driving force was more to do with providing an opportunity for young people to enjoy the outdoors and enjoy conservation and learn ecology and learn botany and provide opportunities. That was really the driving force and that gets reflected in the constitution of the trust.”
Jim and Ngaire shared a passion for the environment.
“They supported each other all the way along, but it was Dad’s experience back in the early days that set it off. The two of them loved hiking and tramping, particularly Mum, she’d tramped all over the world.
“That enjoyment of the outdoors and appreciation of the outdoors and the need to protect the outdoors - they were both in that area.”
The park is 21 hectares and about 15ha is currently native bush, with a planting programme in place to reforest another 4ha.
There is an area of about 2ha that is flat land to be left grassed to allow for buildings and car parking and to provide a clean and environmentally friendly campsite for schools, universities and the public.
Jim started planting back in 2012. He planted mainly rimu, tōtara, matai, kahikatea, rewarewa and kōwhai and would have planted more than 500 trees over this time.
Thousands of trees have been planted since.
The trust hopes to finish the reforestation programme in 2025, and then concentrate on finishing the track-building programme and establishing a comprehensive predator-trapping programme.
Saturday’s celebration starts at 1.30pm and includes guided walks around the park, speeches, tree planting and a barbecue.
