Perrine Moncrieff

For nearly 50 years Perrine Moncrieff was this country's foremost female conservationist. Born into an upper-class British family, she immigrated to New Zealand in 1921, settled in Nelson and bought land on the shores of Tasman Bay, which became a scenic reserve in the 1930s. In 1942, to celebrate the three-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of New Zealand by Abel Tasman, the reserve was designated as Abel Tasman National Park. This was Moncrieff's greatest conservation achievement. She served on the park board until being required to stand down at age 81. A founding member of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society (1923) and the New Zealand Ornithological Society (1940), she campaigned successfully for reservation of land at Lake Rotoroa and Maruia Springs, and for designation of Farewell Spit as a bird sanctuary. She also donated a large area of coastal bush at Okiwi to the Crown as a reserve. Her popular guide to the identification of New Zealand birds, published in 1925, was a standard reference for some 40 years. She was an honorary wildlife ranger for 15 years, tramped extensively in the Nelson region and elsewhere in the South Island, and she wrote many articles at home and abroad. (See also her biography on the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website.)