Conservation Comment: Conservation gives context to climate activism

Rosemary Penwarden's "old man" in the garden. Photo / Rosemary Penwarden

My old man's a conservationist to his bones. We met cutting tracks in the bush in the soon-to-be fenced Orokonui Ecosanctuary.

I didn't mean to fall in love. Done with men and all that. Long story short, this time was different.

I soon realised that my chattering as we worked wasn't the only thing he was paying attention to. Everything got his attention; the fantail picking off the insects we'd dislodged, insects themselves, the tomtit 20m away and grey warbler down in the valley, bellbirds bickering for territory nearby, kereru passing overhead. And the silent things; how the ground was bare except for tiny kanuka seedlings that had escaped the goats, possums and other herbivores.

Long story short, 16 years later we're growing bush on our own place just north of Dunedin along with fruit, nuts, berries, vegetables, flowers and weeds. My old man documents it all. He can't help it. For example, here are some of the bees' favourite flowers: autumn joy (Sedum spectabile), rugosa roses, chicory, feverfew, crimson yarrow, catnip. Gorse flowers and ragwort, enemies to a dairy farmer's daughter, are popular with the non-humans we share our place with. I've learnt to compromise.

My natural tendency for tidy green paddocks has matured into a rediscovery of the red and white clover, rye, cocksfoot and Yorkshire fog I once learned for calf club. My grandchildren like the waggly lamb tail seed heads of timothy. And lamb's ear, birdsfoot trefoil, scarlet pimpernel and rosemary. They snap off crunchy runner beans and gobble them down to run faster. They climb the trees we've planted, higher by the year, growing taller together.

Even the smallest creatures don't escape my old man's notice. I can't squash anything any more, at least until it's been documented.

Light-brown apple moth caterpillars (Epiphyas postbittena) got into the stalks of our Bramley seedlings this year and the apples fell off before ripening. We'll try thinning them next year.

Other less-destructive moths, along with yellow and red admiral butterflies, are food for swooping swallows and squeaking fantails. They all have a story. Last night a Monopis ethelella landed on the window for classification. An Aussie import, its caterpillar feeds, amongst other things, on sheep's wool that's been caught on barbed wire.

Another Aussie import, the tiny black gum moth Stericta carbonalis, the colour of burnt eucalyptus trees, was first recorded in Banks Peninsula in 2009. Unlike humans, it'll do okay as global heating speeds up and fires become more frequent.

May was warmer at our place this year; by two and a half degrees during the day, by nearly two degrees at night, with three frosts compared with last year's 10, and with a third of last May's rainfall.

I remember a moment; I might have been 10. I'd been helping Dad milk the cows. He was washing up and the machines were still thud-thudding across the paddock. An occasional grassy cow snort pricked the darkness. No moon, the Milky Way was so close I could touch it. I didn't have words for the feeling that surged through me that moment and don't need any. There I was, in this world, surrounded by contented cows, the Milky Way, the beating heart of the cowshed. I needed nothing more.

At this end of my life that feeling's back. My old man has helped me remember nature's magic. My work helping stop the biggest polluters wrecking our world has context in the gentle miracle of life. I've become a conservationist too, down to my bones.

• Rosemary Penwarden grew up in Brunswick near Whanganui, and lives with her partner on 10 acres of paradise near Dunedin that used to be a sheep paddock.