Miranda Naturalists' Trust

The Miranda Naturalists' Trust is a charitable trust, that established and maintains the Miranda Shorebird Centre, located at Miranda on the western shore of the Firth of Thames on the North Island of New Zealand. The Miranda Naturalists' Trust (MNT) was formed in 1975 to encourage people to visit the coastline and appreciate its wide range of flora and fauna. Nowadays the trust promotes education and public awareness of coastal ecology, shorebird research and conservation. Bird banding, research and data exchange are among the activities that are done by the trust, to advance knowledge of shorebird migration.^[1] The Miranda Shorebird Centre is open to visitors all year. It has information displays on waders, a shop, a library and offers accommodation.

History of the trust

The Naturists' Trust was established in 1975 by a group of Auckland-based birdwatchers. One of them was Richard (Dick) B. Sibson. He had arrived in Auckland from England in 1939 to take up a position as a classics' master with King's College at Middlemore. He was a keen birdwatcher, making bicycle tours to the Firth of Thames in the 1940s, e.g. in 1942 with a group of students from King's College. At Miranda, at the site of a then operating lime-works, he discovered a bird high-tide roost with Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica), Wrybills (Anarhynchus frontalis) and South Island Pied Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus). Other founders of the MNT were author and naturalist Ronald Lockley and Beth Brown. Beth was later to become the South Auckland representative and the first woman president of the Ornithological Society.^[2]

In 1973 Beth Brown had the first serious thoughts about the building of a birders' lodge near a wading bird roost. Miranda provided a good spot as here birds could always be seen within walking distance. The plan was put to a meeting of Auckland members of the Ornithological Society in March 1974. Here a committee was set up to bring the idea to practice. Later in the year the idea developed into establishing a “wildlife trust”.

1975: Registration of the Trust

In 1975 the Miranda Naturalists' Trust was registered as a charitable trust under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. The first president of the Trust was John Brown.

The Trust's constitution saw as its main objects:

• To establish and maintain an observatory for the study of natural history, especially birds, in the Firth of Thames and adjacent areas.
• To collect information on the ecology of the Miranda Coast with a view to its conservation.
• To encourage and promote education for the greater knowledge and enjoyment of the natural life heritage of New Zealand.^[3]

The first donations were acquired, and a fund-raising campaign was started. An “Inaugural Appeal” letter was circulated, stating that “an Observatory should be set up at Miranda to maintain and amplify the study of birds in the Firth”. This letter also spoke of the hope that “the lodge could be an established fact by mid-winter 1975”.^[4] Elaine Power painted a New Zealand Dotterel (Charadrius obscurus) for the Trust, which was sold in print in a limited edition, signed by the artist, and Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, made a fundraising speech, when he visited Auckland.

In 1976 Dick Sibson was elected chairman of the Trust. Important donations were received from Mobil Oil NZ, the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, the J.R. McKenzie Trust and the Recreation and Sport Fund.^[5] In that same year “the first of the problems arose”.^[6] An application for permission to build an observatory and lodge on the site of the old lime-works was turned down.

Finally, the problems would not be solved until the end of the 1980s. In 1986 the Trust, still looking for a place to erect a building, changed focus to the west side of the Miranda to Kaiaua Road. Then the process got into a higher speed, and within a couple of years the building actually starts.

1990: Opening of the Centre

Mid January 1990 the builders arrive and on 29 September 1990 the Miranda Naturalists' Trust Centre on the road from Miranda to Kaiaua was officially opened with a dedication ceremony with the tāngata whenua of Pukorokoro, Taramaire and Kaiaua. About 110 members and visitors assembled outside the gates of the centre at daybreak at 6 am. They were called on to the site by a karanga and the blessing (te karakia) and the greetings (te mihi) took place. Once in the building speeches of welcome from both sides, following marae etiquette were held. These speeches were followed by waiata (singing).

One of the waiata had the following text:

Ka haere mai ano nga kuaka
Ka kite ano – te iwi pakeha
Ka kite ano – te tangata whenua
Na tatou katoa – Pukorokoro nei

Welcome again the godwits
For the Pakeha to see
For the first people to see
For Miranda is for all

Then the Miranda Trust executive council members welcomed the tāngata whenua to the opening ceremony. The early start and the procedures at this day were chosen, to show that the Trust was conscious to be in fact guests on the ancestral lands of Te Tangata Whenua. Following breakfast the tangata whenua left and Rev. Richard Fenton conducted a small dedication ceremony. Following this ceremony a number of speakers performed, among whom Sir Peter Elworthy, chairman of the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust and Professor Max Maddock, from the University of Newcastle (NSW), chairman of the Shortland Wetlands Centre.^[7]

In the same year a $50,000 grant from the N.Z. Lottery Grants Board was received, which allowed the building of new rooms at the Centre.

Recent developments

In 1992 John Gale, a recently retired Auckland businessman, became honorary full time manager of the Centre. From then on the Centre could be open permanently for all hours. This only lasted for sixteen weeks however, when John left for a visit to England. It then became clear that a full-time centre manager was a prime necessity for the future.^[8] The next year a full-time manager was appointed, paid with funding from “Task Force Green”, a government agency involved with subsidising employment of people.

John Gale would then become member of the executive council of the Trust and subsequently chairman (until 1998).

In 1993 the land surrounding the former lime-works were bought under the protection of a QE II National Trust Covenant. The area was called the “Robert Findlay Wildlife Area”, to commemorate the Findlay families, who, together with the Lane families, had allowed birdwatchers unimpeded access over the land since 1867.

In 1994 Adrian Riegen formed the New Zealand Wader Study Group, supported by the Trust. The group consisted of bird banders, and had developed from a local Miranda group within the Trust, to being a nation-wide group recording and reporting on bird banding results to do with waders from all over New Zealand.^[9]

In 1998 the site of the Centre was enlarged with the selling of an extra 3,000 m2 of land, on which the manager's house stood.

Miranda

North of the Hauraki Plains extends the Firth of Thames into the Hauraki Gulf. To the east the Coromandel Peninsula is found, to the west the Hunua Ranges are rising. The wetlands of the Firth of Thames consist of extensive intertidal mudflats (about 8500 hectares), which are the feeding grounds for flocks of migratory wading birds. Along the Miranda coast large shell banks were formed over the past 4500 years,^[1] which provide roosting areas for the waders at high tide. This offers excellent opportunities for watching the birds.

In 1990 the area was listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.^[10]

Miranda Shorebird Centre

The Miranda Shorebird Centre can be found on the west side of the road between Miranda and Kaiaua. It's open to visitors all year, and it has information displays on wader birds of the Firth of Thames. It also houses a shop, which offers a collection of books on birds and birding and bird related souvenirs.

The Centre has a library, that is open to use for research purposes.

The Centre offers low budget accommodation in different forms: bunkrooms and self-contained units for individuals and (small) groups.

Keith Woodley is the Centre manager since 1 May 1993.^[11]

Visitor numbers have developed from 3,000 in 1993 to 16,000 in 2008.^[12]

Newsletters

Four times a year the trust publishes a newsletter to keep members in touch, and to bring news of events at the Miranda Shorebird Centre and along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.

The first newsletters were mostly bird reports, annual reports and interim reports. In 1980 for the first time a real “Newsletter” was produced. It was only a single page and the bird reports were still published as well. September 1981 brought another newsletter, this time of four pages, and by June 1982 the newsletter had eleven pages, and had incorporated the annual and interim reports. The next newsletter in May 1983 looked much more professional, with text in two columns and photos, and stated that it was now “registered as a newspaper”. From then on, newsletters and records (both in two column-print and with photos), alternately appeared, a newsletter in summer and the records in spring. From October 1984 the name of the editor, Stuart Chambers, was given. He actually became editor in 1983 ^[13] and would remain until August 1996. The last “Records” showed up in November 1988. From then on the newsletter appeared bi-annually until 1990, when four newsletters were published. The newsletter of November 1990, published as “Newsletter 1”, gives an account of the “Opening Ceremony” of the Shorebird Centre. From then on, 3 or 4 newsletters were published every year. No. 21, of May 1996 was the first newsletter with a cover in full colour. It had 44 pages and was called the “21st Birthday Issue”. It was then called “Miranda Naturalists' Trust News” for the first time, the title it still holds (Issue 76, November 2010).

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} Leaflet Miranda Shorebird Centre. Published by the Miranda Naturalists' Trust, june 2008
2. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 7
3. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 15
4. ^ Miranda Naturalists' Trust Inaugural Appeal
5. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 18/9
6. ^ Chambers 2000, p.19
7. ^ Chambers, Stuart (ed.) - Newsletter of the Miranda Naturalists' Trust, September 1990, and November 1990
8. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 117
9. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 129
10. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 163
11. ^ Keith Woodley – 'From the Manager'. in: Chambers, Stuart (ed.) - Newsletter of the Miranda Naturalists' Trust 10, August 1993
12. ^ Hensley, Jenni, Rowena West and Gillian Vaughan (2009) – 'Visitor numbers at the Shorebird Centre'. In: Miranda Naturalists' Trust News, February 2009, Issue 72
13. ^ Chambers 2000, p. 38

Literature

• Chambers, Stuart. (n.d., c. 2000). The Story of the Miranda Naturalists’ Trust. MNT: Pokeno, New Zealand. ISBN 0-473-06493-6
• Heather, Barrie & Hugh Robertson; illustrated by Derek Onley (2005) – The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand Published by Viking (Penguin Books), Auckland, New Zealand.
• Woodley, Keith (2009) - Godwits, Long-haul champions. Publ. by Penguin Group (NZ), North Shore NZ. ISBN 978-0-14-301193-4.

External links

• Miranda Naturalists' Trust