DOC's walk in the park

Mimiwhangata Coastal Park on the east coast north of Whangarei. Photo/File

They take care of a part of New Zealand many Kiwis hold dear — our conservation estate. Lindy Laird pays tribute to our rangers before World Ranger Day.

Most New Zealanders happily admit to living in a world of their own.

Not a dream world where they spend life with their heads in the air. It's more to do with being well-grounded, so to speak.

Few places in the world can claim such diverse geography, indigenous plants and birds as Aotearoa New Zealand.

This world is a sea creature-and-bone shaped narrow sprawl of islands — the famed Shaky Isles, one of the most remote nations on the planet, heeled into in the South Pacific and stretching from the subtropics to the sub-Antarctic.

In between the extremities are peninsulas, harbours, spits, bites, bays, beaches, silica sands, iron sands, a 15,000km coast, geothermal fields, glaciers, plateaux, tussock country, rivers, lakes, swamps, volcanoes, alps, almost-deserts, and forests on lowland, high country, the hard Sub-antarctic islands to the south, the sub-tropical islands to the North.

Among the people is a widespread appreciation of this island world of scenic beauty, wildlife, and the cultural partnerships unique to this country. Also, an appreciation of the challenges and values associated with those.

Manaia Armstrong, Mimiwhangata ranger with Julia Brady in the new uniform. Photo / John Stone

Take away the cities, settlements, farms, private ownership and iwi reserves, about one third of the country is in public ownership, and protected.

Someone has to look after all that.

Hello, DOC. And hello also to many iwi, hapū, community groups, corporates, government departments, local authorities, landowners, industries, schools and individuals in partnerships with the Department of Conservation (DOC) — often called the Department of Conversation because of the amount of jaw-achingly lengthy consultations that accompany every decision and change.

It's not just a walk in the park.

Increasingly, DOC is strengthening its tourism arm to help fund its biodiversity and landscape protection work. It's recreational kaupapa has segued into running a tourism business, changing guess work into guest work by creating a targeted "conservation economy", particularly in the most popular, spectacular accessible national parks.

Higher user charges for overseas visitors are intended to pay for improving and maintaining the tracks and facilities needed to cater for those extra people, to lessen their footprint. It's a numbers game, and circular. Critics say that even with extra tourist charges going back into protecting vulnerable landscapes, the balance should swing in favour of greater protection of the natural resource, not greater or more expensive access.

Rangers are out in all conditions trapping predators, tracking threatened species, servicing huts, maintaining tracks and doing other tasks. They work in diverse and tough environments, from the subtropical Kermadecs to the Subantartic islands, and from mountains to the sea.

With no national parks in Northland — although Te Paki Coastal Walk is shortlisted among others being considered for promotion to a Great Walk — in many ways the tourism dollar isn't a major local focus.

As with DOC conservancies countrywide, the Northern New Zealand region focuses strongly on biodiversity protection — with its science, technology, practical, cultural and on-ground operations. They include animal pest and plant disease control, monitoring vulnerable ecologies, the paper jungle of planning and watch-dogging, right down to guarding the shallow sand-scrape nests of the world's most endangered seabird.

Then there's the recreational/historical side, also bundled up in "operations". There are dozens of tracks and walkways through the DOC estate in Northland, in some cases public accessibility being weighed up in light of kauri dieback disease. Other tracks, say, the Whangārei Heads Mt Manaia Track or Mangawhai-Bream Tail coastal walkway require maintenance, safety checks, signage renewals. Then there are archeological sites.

And there are the basic-amenity beach and bush campgrounds, at least 13 of them in glorious settings from east to west coasts, Uretiti Beach south of Whangārei to Spirits Bay near North Cape.

We're about to meet two of the 35 rangers who work out of the Whangārei headquarters, one of whom, Julia Brady, works in science-biodiversity operations and the other, Manaia Armstrong, in the recreational field.

When we met up, Operations manager Julia Brady had just returned from a spit south of Whangārei where she helped kill off weeds around where the rare, highly endangered fairy tern, tara-iti in Māori, will scrape its shallow nest in the sand in a few month's time.

On another day, she might have been out collecting seeds from ramarama or other vulnerable native trees to grow new stock in case myrtle rust wipes out those in the wild.
Brady has found work and life in Northland interesting. She moved to her Whangārei job in March, from Wairarapa where she worked for DOC in a more desk-based biodiversity role.
"It wasn't such a public role," she said comparing it to her current outdoor and meet-the-public profile.

With a science background, she loves the process of ecology.

"I love the analyses of pest control, the impact studies."

Her science role began with the pre-DOC NZ Wildlife Service and switched to school teaching, through which she had an international conservation education post as a teacher ambassador in China for a month.

"It was really cool for a teacher to be able to see children become so inspirational about ecology and conservation."

As for differences between the northern and more southern conservation estates, the problems are different but the processes are similar.

Brady was surprised on moving north to find such strong public buy-in to conservation projects, and the many that are community-led.

"It's been really refreshing to see that public passion."

Manaia Armstrong is on the "rec" side of things, officially the recreation and historical ranger at DOC's Mimiwhangata Coastal Park.

Modestly, he said his job was to run the campground and three guest accommodations, and manage the bookings for the 150 person, basic amenity Waikahoa Bay camp at one of the several stunning beaches at Mimiwhangata.

Digging a little deeper, we learn he rides from chore to chore on a horse, which gives an added air to the job for which he wakes up every morning and pinches himself, so lucky, privileged and passionate he feels about it.

The horse also gives Armstrong an excited following of camping kids, which offers him the chance to talk about conservation to the youngsters. There's usually a handful of them trailing along when he checks the trap line.

"People will always come up and ask about the tracks, what they'll see and where they are," Armstrong said.

But it's summertime water recreation more than the walking tracks that brings people to Mimiwhangata, about 48km north east of Whangārei.

He said he always has to remind fishers it's a marine reserve area where reef species cannot be caught, although schnapper and other table fish are fair game.

Armstrong is proud to wear the new uniform and pleased it carries a kōwhaiwhai which has deep meaning for his whānau and hapū.

He grew up at Whangaruru where his father's family are from, while his mother's people are from Whananaki — at Mimiwhangata he is right at home and halfway between both his tūpuna houses.

He feels the same way about his job, his role often as a talker, explaining policy-speak to his people in language they understand.

"Walking both paths has been enriching for me."

Armstrong attended Whangaruru School at Punaruku before going to the Mormon College in Hamilton. He studied at university and went on a two-year mission. Back home, he started a business breaking in horses, which he loved. Then along came a dream job with DOC he was almost too shy to apply for. He was encouraged by people around him who said DOC was seeking greater diversity in its workers.

'My skill set, my upbringing, my mission, they all came into play. I think it's awesome that DOC are giving a range of people jobs, but the precursor is the passion you have for the environment."

A few days before Word Ranger Day DOC gave the Northern Advocate a sneak peak at its operations staffs' new clobber.

Gone are the green fleeces like a cousin of the iconic Kiwi bushman's Swanndri. In are lighter weight, brighter green fabrics, sun-and-sweat-smart, cleverly warm and cool, able to take the heavy-duty work, and using the mantra about easy layering. While traditional green, the new range also has grey and high-viz orange. The new uniforms are more comfortable and nicer than the old.

"What I like most about the new uniform is this," Brady said, pointing to the Maōri kōwhaiwhai sitting like an epaulette on the shoulder.

That kōwhaiwhai pattern was commissioned to represent the Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership between DOC and Māori, says communications adviser Abigail Monteith. This year is the 30th anniversary of that signing.

It's a nice touch and we predict we'll see the new kōwhaiwhai somehow incorporated into much of DOC's branding.

Monteith said all 1200 frontline staff in New Zealand will eventually be provided with the new uniforms.

"Rangers are out in all conditions trapping predators, tracking threatened species, servicing huts, maintaining tracks and doing other tasks," she said.

"They work in diverse and tough environments, from the subtropical Kermadecs to the Subantartic islands, and from mountains to the sea."

Interestingly, a DOC ranger had most input into the design of the new gear. Mat Nalder had a global career in design and procurement of outdoor gear before he joined DOC in Golden Bay.

The last major redesign of the uniform was in the mid-1990s and, as well as it being time for a smart new look, there have been big advances in ultra-violet protection and insulation in fabrics since then.

Corporate staff will eventually get new uniforms with appropriate differences to the field workers' garb, and the field workers themselves have to wait until next year for new thermal and rain wear.

❏ World Ranger Day is celebrated on July 31 every year, an international day to acknowledge all rangers and to commemorate those who have lost their lives or been seriously injured in their work.