Trustee retires after a lifetime of protecting wetlands

After 57 years out in the wild John Cheyne is home to roost after retiring as a trustee for the NZ Game Bird Habitat Trust (GBHT).

One of New Zealand’s wisest and most trusted voices on wetland management, John started his career in the New Zealand Wildlife Service as a young man in 1967 working with threatened bird species and waterfowl and the wetlands they needed to survive. Twenty years later the Department of Conservation was formed and John became Hawke’s Bay’s first DOC regional manager. He retired from DOC in 2000 and was employed by Fish and Game Hawke’s Bay as a fresh water biodiversity officer for about five years.

At this point he established a small consultancy business called Wetland Works based in Hawke’s Bay but working right across the North Island.  This work involved wetland bird surveys and providing advice on wetland bird habitat enhancement.  A significant amount of this work was focused on the endangered bittern and secretive wetland birds like spotless and marsh crake in addition to the more common waterfowl species.

John was appointed to the NZ Game Bird Habitat Trust in 2010 as a Ducks Unlimited representative then as a DOC representative until his retirement earlier this year.  “I’m 75 now so it’s time for me to move on and for someone else to take my place,” he says.

“People appointed to the Trust have a significant amount of knowledge and practical wetland management experience amongst themselves, and together with Fish and Game staff and Ducks Unlimited members, are an invaluable source of hands on knowledge and expertise when it comes to the creation, enhancement and management of wetland habitats for open water bird species and wetland game birds in particular.  There will be no noticeable gap in the Game Bird Habitat Trust with my retirement as there are so many competent people on the Trust.”

Reflecting on his years of conservation work – for which he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2021, John talks about work ranging from building wetlands with a digger to establishing a national threatened species dog programme to help locate threatened species like kakapo and kiwi for relocation to predator free sites and general research purposes.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with wetlands, farmers, landowners, and staff at Fish & Game, DOC and the Wildlife Service.  If it wasn’t for those organisations and other statutory agencies, wetlands would be in a sorrier state still than they are.”

He reckons that over the years he’s worked on about 150 wetlands both large and small in Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Wairarapa, Waikato, Northland, Southland, and Otago.  “I’ve been very lucky to have had the opportunity to work on the number, size and diversity of wetlands that I have.”  He’s seen many changes, good and bad.  He highlights the need for practical experience to be more widely provided for than it has been in some organisations in more recent years, and sees time in the field as the tertiary equivalent of a university degree as far as developing the hands on skills needed to develop and maintain productive wetlands.

He is concerned that current wetland protection measures are under threat and hopes the importance of wetlands becomes more widely appreciated.  “Wetlands have multiple values, not just for birds, but for fish species, recreation, flood control and water quality enhancement to name just a few.  Wetlands serve multiple functions and we need these values to be better understood and wetlands to be more widely created, restored and enhanced.”

John says increasing numbers of landowners are becoming more environmentally conscious and this is encouraging.  The day we spoke with him he had spent the morning looking at a wetland project with a member of the Hawke’s Bay Fish & Game team. “It was inspiring to hear the landowner talk not only of the wetland they were developing but how they manage their land more generally – protecting their native bush, controlling predators and undertaking ongoing planting and maintenance programmes.  The family will not only get satisfaction from doing this and enjoying the environmental outcomes it generates, but in the case of the wetland they’re developing will enjoy the additional benefit of being able to hunt waterfowl over it.”

John commented that larger and more ambitious wetland and environmental programmes can take considerable time to implement and deliver their full potential, but for some landowners this can be rewarding in itself, particularly when the programme becomes an ongoing and multi-generational exercise. 

His top tips for someone seeking to create or enhance a wetland are to seek advice from Fish & Game or other qualified and experienced people who in addition to providing practical support can point them in the direction of funding opportunities. 

John lives in Waipukurau with wife Gail and they have a cabin close to Lake Hatuma where he enjoys kayaking and bird watching.  They have planted the property for the local tui and wax eyes to enjoy.  “I’m sitting on the deck, the sun is beaming and I’m watching the birds feeding.  I have worked with some of the rarest birds, like bittern and kakapo, but I get a great kick out of the more common native birds and watching their behaviour and interactions.”

He and Gail have three children and four grandchildren between them.  Gail has been hands-on, particularly over the past 12 years, helping with wetland bird surveys and now they are enjoying travelling New Zealand and visiting special places like Fiordland to see the wildlife and scenery.  John is looking forward to more time out on the water for fun rather than work.

“I’ll do more of what I’m doing now, I’m a keen trout fisherman and Hawke’s Bay has great braided trout rivers which also support a large number of birds like banded dotterel and pied stilt.  Wherever I go and whatever I do, I like observing the birds and see what’s going on.” 

For now he’s sitting in the sun with the lake 500m away watching the birds and reflecting on the joys of a long and rewarding career in which wetlands have played a major part.

Caption John Cheyne at a wetland