Why I wrote the books about Tiritiri Matangi

With the publication in 2021 of the supplement, Tiritiri Matangi 2005-2020, and last year’s reprint of my old book Tiritiri Matangi: A Model Of Conservation, which was first published in 2004, I feel like I am closing a chapter of my life.

This seems a good time to explain a little of the background to the books. I grew up in Wellington, did a science degree at Vic and moved to Canada for an unexpected 20 years. Following the sudden death of my Canadian husband, Dr David Rimmer, I returned home in 1991 in my early 40s, with my two young daughters.

Coming home, I was struck anew by just how beautiful and unspoiled New Zealand was and resolved to work towards keeping it so. I joined Forest and Bird North Shore branch, becoming its Chairperson for a short stint, and was soon introduced to Tiritiri Matangi by Claire Stevens.

Islands have a special charm for many people, but especially for a Kiwi who had spent years landlocked in Canada, and I was hooked immediately. I was part of the first guiding intake in 1998, and the training programme set up by Barbara Walter established the pattern we still follow today. The guiding team grew very quickly, and right from the beginning we all had that intense pride in our work that makes our tours so popular.

Even back then it was astonishing and significant how many of the “old guard" were still actively involved on Tiritiri Matangi, but some were old, others were ill, and we started worrying that we may lose some of the knowledge they had amassed. I proposed writing a book but I had no track record, and the SoTM committee, perhaps understandably, refused to support me in this venture, saying they planned to write one themselves.

But about two years later, when I was feeling more secure and nothing more had happened on the book front, I decided to go ahead anyway. I made a rule that I would first find a publisher, and after a winding trail I signed with Bob Ross and Helen Benton at Tandem Press. This warm, supportive couple guided me superbly through the writing process.

My first interview in 2002 was with Carol West, who had been botany professor Neil Mitchell’s first graduate student on Tiritiri Matangi. Over two years, I interviewed people from all walks of island life: surviving members of the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park Board; DOC officers and scientists; lighthouse keepers, signalmen and their descendants; the farming family, Hobbs, and many volunteers. Everyone was eager to help in any way they could. To thank everyone I organised a Tiritiri Matangi reunion in 2003, which was attended by 130 people. We should have another one!

Others had come before me, and I was able to use interviews from the 1980s done by Pat Greenfield and Wynne Spring-Rice, the archaeologist. Regular newsletters, which started as a flimsy one-page spread at the formation of SoTM, later morphing into the superb Dawn Chorus, were a rich source of information.

I knew that I could handle the scientific side of the Island’s story, but initially I found the history a daunting prospect. However,

I soon became an enthusiastic sleuth, always looking to fit another piece into the jigsaw puzzle, even now for example, still trying to find out if the watchtower was initially a onestorey building. My greatest regret remains that we still don’t have a genuine colour photograph of the lighthouse when it was painted red, before 1950. However, Alfred Sharpe’s 1883 water colour A grey day off Tiritiri, which is in the Auckland Art Gallery (and available online or click here) shows the lighthouse as red.

Before the Visitor Centre was built, some old photos were stored in a filing cabinet in the old potting shed, and many people I interviewed offered photographs of their time on the Island. I copied everything I could, and these formed the basis for the digital Tiritiri Archives that are now such a valuable part of our historical record.

A major regret is that 20 years ago it was normal practice to scan a photograph at a much lower resolution than we use today. Since many precious photographs were borrowed, scanned and returned, our copies are of a much poorer quality than I would like. You can easily see the difference between the small illustrations in the original book, and the large, sparkling images that grace the supplement.

Both books were designed by Jacinda Torrance of Verso Visual, who is responsible for the beautiful appearance of both of them. She is a joy to work with. It was also Jacinda who had saved the only complete set of the very old pdfs in an obsolete format from 2004 that enabled this new reprint of the book to be done. Even the Taiwan printers and the book’s New Zealand publishers couldn’t supply a full copy of the pdfs.

As the Tiritiri Matangi book was being readied to go to press a major hiccup occurred: Bob Ross and Helen Benton decided to retire and sold Tandem Press to Random House, a much larger publisher. Part of their agreement was that books like mine, which Tandem Press had committed to, were to be published by Random House along the same lines as before. I was horrified! It was like being told you’ve been assigned a new husband, but things should remain the same. However, though difficult, it all worked out well, and I was, and still am, delighted with the finished book. Tiritiri Matangi: A Model Of Conservation was launched at Takapuna Library in 2004, and won the Environment Section of the Montana Book Awards in 2005. I recall the poet Vincent O'Sullivan remarking to me at the awards luncheon that it was very unusual for an author’s first book to win an award.

It was certainly a heady time for a first-time author, including interviews with Kim Hill, and with Wayne Mowat, on National Radio. At the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival, I was honoured to share a platform with Australian scientist, Tim Flannery, and my personal hero, the Canadian conservationist David Suzuki.

The book sold out its first print run in less than a year (another surprise). It was reprinted in 2005, and again in 2009 in a slightly updated edition in which I changed two photos and corrected a bit of text. Random House merged with Penguin Books in 2012. The rights to the book reverted to me in 2018 after Penguin Random House, understandably deciding that the book was no longer profitable, allowed it to go out of print. I believe about 5000 copies were sold in all.

For the first six years after publication I gave many conservation talks to community groups such as Forest and Bird, tramping groups, church groups, Probus, Rotary, etc. I made a small income by selling autographed copies of the book and spread the word to thousands of people. These talks were mostly in Auckland, but I was also invited to speak at Zealandia in Wellington, and even gave a talk in Rarotonga. Apart from these few book sales my only income from both titles is royalties: $2 per copy for the book, and $1.50 for the supplement, plus a small annual sum which covers the copies held in libraries.

SoTM will fund the reprinting of both books in future. They will probably be sold only in the shop on the Island and online, with all proceeds going to SoTM. But this is not a money-making venture for SoTM as the profit margin on small print runs (300 copies) is very small.

The 2021 reprint of the original book is exactly the same as the 2004 edition. The new supplement, Tiritiri Matangi 2005-2020, which was self-published in 2021, contains all new information and photographs; it is not in any way a revised edition of the old book. Its production costs were donated by a generous Tiritiri Matangi Supporter who wishes to remain anonymous, thus giving SoTM all the profits from the sales of the first small print run of 300 copies.

The supplement took far too long to produce, but this delay added an odd advantage: the last pages are entitled “Covid Coda” and I fear this book records the end of an era for Tiritiri Matangi.

We will struggle back in some way, of course, and as Ray Walter said in 2003, “if we all walked away tomorrow, the Island would just carry on”. But the pandemic is leaving its mark on Tiritiri Matangi in many ways: monetary, lost educational opportunities, and, not least, the loss of a year or more of valuable data – for example, the banding of a season’s kōkako chicks was disrupted. I feel it is important to document what we are losing, for the future record.

Tiritiri Matangi has given me so much: great friendships, plus enormous pride and satisfaction in being able to contribute to such an important project. Thank you to all my Island friends. The journey continues. Go safely.

NOTE: Please check with your local library to see if they have copies of Tiritiri Matangi: A Model Of Conservation and the supplement, Tiritiri Matangi 2005-2020, and ask the librarian to order them in. They are listed by Wheelers which supplies books to libraries.