Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust Pūrerehua Aotearoa

Meriel has lived in Hamilton since she emigrated from Canada to New Zealand 23 years ago. She quickly grew to love her adopted country. She has a son (16) and a daughter (10) and is a very keen gardener and beekeeper.

Monarchs, in particular, have always fascinated her. She is also a self-confessed tree-hugger and collector of crystals as well.

For over six years she has been working as the Finance Officer for Vardon Primary School. Prior to that she was the corporate financial administrator for the Philips Search and Rescue Trust for six years. They own and operate the Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter and four others in the central North Island. This fostered her interest in the not-for-profit sector.

Other trustee experience include

• the Board of The Rauhi Project (previously Sistema Waikato) a musical charity for children from lower socio-economic circumstances,
• Glenview Primary School Board of Trustees for six years, and
• the Stewardship Group for the Te Kaahui Ako o Mangakotukutuku (Melville Community of Learning) for over two years.

Meriel enjoys the experience of being a Board member and is excited to continue to expand her experience and learning. Her strong financial knowledge will be useful to the Board. She looks forward to being part of the positive environmental work for our precious pollinators.

Mark Bateman was the NZ Regional Director of Storage King, working to expand the business throughout NZ. He is a Life Member of the Self Storage Association of Australasia, an industry he has worked in for over 25 years. He has retired from the business recently.

While family is his prime interest being a Life Member of Eden Rugby sees me involved in club organisation and watching a lot of rugby during the winter. He also likes classic cars, belonging to the Zephyr Club, and driving a Mark 1 Zephyr as his hobby car.

During the late 90’s, when Auckland was sprayed for the painted apple moth, Mark saw the devastation of monarch butterflies in the Mt Albert area. Time has gone by and he has recently returned to Mt Albert and planted some swan plants. His granddaughter and he watched as the butterflies went through their life cycle. He said that each caterpillar was called ‘George’ which soon turned into lots of Georges, much to his granddaughter’s delight.

The monarch butterfly is a species that brings colour and a point of interest to every garden. He says that if he can help bring colour to our gardens then he thinks that it is a good thing. While he has resigned as a trustee he has agreed to stay with responsibility for the development of our National Butterfly Centre / Te Matauranga o nga Pūrerehua o Aotearoa.

Jacqui lives in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland where she is a freelance writer, desktop publisher, and the persona of ‘Madam Butterfly’ when she visits schools to talk about… butterflies.

Jacqui has been playing with butterflies ever since she can remember; taught all she knew to her two sons and will no doubt do so with her grandchildren too (current count three).

More about Jacqui and her adventures are on websites www.madambutterfly.co.nz and www.bitbybit.co.nz.

Maurice Mehlhopt is not sure when he became a butterfly devotee because as a child in Timaru his main job in the summer was to whack all the white butterflies that invaded the family garden. His father would pay him! He was a butterfly bounty hunter!

So maybe by way of conscience about three years ago he popped his first swan plant in his Ponsonby garden and that one plant has now become 20! He says there is a constant swirl of butterflies all around – and in! the house. He says it looks more like something out of Disneyland.

Having spent all his working life in the strongly logical hard edge of the business world, how a slug shuffles on a green coat and emerges as a butterfly would defy the world’s best magicians!

The most surprising reaction has come from the two plants he grew on his berm last year. He was continually amazed at the number of people who stopped to watch the butterflies and the caterpillars, children in particular taking great care to put any caterpillars that had fallen off back onto a leaf!
He said it has been the highlight of his summer.

Brian Patrick is a professional butterfly scientist having been the author of and photographer for seven books on natural history including two that specialised on butterflies.

He has researched Lepidoptera for nearly fifty years in New Zealand and extensively overseas, producing over 250 publications on the subject.

Brian has served as a Ministerial appointment on the Otago Conservation Board, and as Past President of the New Zealand Entomological Society. Previously he was Project Leader of the Otago Museum’s Tropical Butterfly House development and has also been Director of Central Stories Museum, Alexandra, Central Otago.

With his son Hamish he authored BUTTERFLIES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC in 2012. Currently he works as a consultant scientist based in Christchurch specialising in insect–plant relationships.

As you can tell, butterflies are not only his lifelong passion but a very important part of his work.

Hugh Smith joined the trustees in January 2015. He has been a teacher for 31 years, nineteen years of these as a primary school principal.

Throughout his teaching career, Hugh has used the natural environment as a teaching context and has facilitated numerous camps and field trips believing that students should learn about the world they live in by going out and exploring it. Hugh’s work experience has included accounting, residential childcare, youth work and as field assistant with a wildlife film team.

An interest in monarch butterflies covers twenty years during which time he has established extensive plantings of swan plants at school and at home. He has nurtured an interest in monarchs amongst hundreds of young people which has included an involvement in the tagging programme for a number of years.

Recently, he has been volunteering in the butterfly garden at Te Puna Quarry Park.

Hugh lives in Omokoroa, just north of Tauranga. Currently he takes on short term acting principal roles and relief teaching and enjoys reading, gardening, kayaking, environmental projects and travel.

Carol Stensness lives in the Far North, having recently “escaped” from Auckland (and the traffic), and has had a lifelong interest in Monarchs. She remembers having swan plants at home as a child.

In 2002 she started rearing butterflies in a couple of adapted wooden banana boxes, partly to help save the few plants she had, and also to protect the caterpillars from paper wasps. Now she has numerous caterpillar castles and finds them invaluable to protect growing caterpillars. She has participated in tagging each year which she enjoys.

Carol has a background in administrative and accounting support, has been a member of the MBNZT since 2005, and Treasurer since 2010.

Pictured: Carol with her grandson, Riki.

Martin has worked in business consulting, marketing, marketing research, strategic planning, sales and in the investment advisory industry for almost 30 years since gaining his Management degree with a marketing major.

He has worked in marketing research, marketing and planning for large multinational and national organisations including AHI/Carter Holt Harvey, American Express/Fletcher Challenge and BNZ. Later he created his own consultancy and several businesses, managing the three-year strategic planning process for American Express and the Bank of New Zealand.

He has a Bachelor of Management Studies (Hons) from University of Waikato and is a current RMA Commissioner. He has studied German language to Masters level, French to end BA, learned Dutch, two years of te reo and has a Statistics minor. Of late he has consulted to local councils and has served as a Whanganui District Councillor.

He is on the Gordon’s Park Scenic Reserve Board which, with DoC, administers one of the last stands of kahikatea forest in the lower North Island. Martin has planted and weeded at the reserve as a volunteer twice-monthly for the last 6 or 7 years. Martin has also been on Pākaitore Historic Reserve Board for nine years, leading its strategic planning process.  (Pākaitore is probably more widely known as the controversial Moutoa Gardens reclaimed by iwi in 1995 in Whanganui.)

He grew up in Putiki, Whanganui, where his father was on the Putiki Marae Committee and Chair of the Putiki Community Council. He was also a Whanganui District Council representative on Tupoho Working Party and on Pākaitore Historic Reserve Board Trust. His various roles have provided him with many contacts amongst Tupoho, but also Tamaupoko, Ngāti Apa and Ngā Rauru.