The Committee

Patron

Tui De Roy

Executive Committee 

Paula Warren (Chair)
Colin Ryder (Treasurer)
Warwick Reed (Secretary)
Julian Fitter
Alan Saunders
Jean Fleming

Tui De Roy – Patron

Tui De Roy is an award-winning wildlife photographer, naturalist, and author of many books on wildlife themes around the world. She is also an ardent conservationist who has combined her life’s three passions — Wildness, Photography and Conservation — into a successful career as a world communicator striving to sensitise her audiences to take better care of our natural planet. With this conviction at heart, she is a Founding Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP).

Tui is Belgian by birth, but grew up in the Galapagos Islands, where her parents took her to lead a pioneering lifestyle when she was two years old. She never attended school, being home taught, and is fluent in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German. After more than 35 years in the Galapagos Islands, Tui relocated to the South Island of New Zealand 20 years ago.  She runs The Roving Tortoise Nature Photography together with business partners Mark Jones and Julie Cornthwaite, working freelance under the logo ‘Images of Wildlife and Wilderness from Our Planet’s Most Pristine, Uninhabited Regions’.

Published in more than 40 countries, Tui’s first articles appeared in major U.S. nature magazines when she was 19, followed a few years later by her first book, Galapagos: Islands lost in time (Viking 1980).  Many subsequent volumes cover not only the Galapagos Islands, but other natural wonders of the world, notably Antarctica, the Andes Mountains, and New Zealand. Her most recent books include Alabatross: Their world, their ways,  an in-depth celebration of the world’s most endangered multi-species bird family, and Galapagos: Preserving Darwin’s Legacy, which represents a compilation of 50 years of science and conservation work since these islands were declared Ecuador’s first national park.  This latter effort won Tui an ‘Honorary Park Warden’ medal from the Galapagos National Park when it decided to publish a Spanish translation of the book for free public distribution and awareness raising as closure to its 2009 half-century anniversary events.

New Books in progress include Penguins: Their world, their ways, whose purpose is to draw attention to the increasingly beleaguered status of these charismatic aquatic birds, due for release in 2013. This is the sister volume and sequel to Alabatross: Their world, their ways which was published in 2008. Another book, Laikipia: Kenya’s High Country, highlighting a little-known, wildlife-rich region of tremendous conservation value, is in press (2012).

For more on Tui’s life and work, visit www.tuideroy.com.

Paula Warren – Chair

Paula is a policy advisor in the Department of Conservation, working on systems and legislative reform, but her university degree is in botany/ecology. Her first involvement with the Galapagos was agreeing to go as a volunteer to help develop quarantine legislation. That resulted in the production of a comprehensive report on how to manage all issues to do with quarantine and pests in the Galapagos. She was an expert advisor on an evaluation of the UN Foundation projects, and on an advisory group for the UN GEF-funded pest management projects. She also did voluntary work looking at the management of the GEF projects and related institutional problems.

In New Zealand she is involved in public transport advocacy, and is a liverwort parataxonomist when she can find the time.

Colin Ryder – Treasurer

Colin has twenty years experience in project managing and resourcing conservation projects in the Wellington region. His experience includes:

• Eradication of mice on Mana Island;
• Convenor of Wellington South Coast Marine Reserves coalition which applied for the Taputeranga marine reserve in Wellington;
• Translocations of several bird, reptile, invertebrate and rare plants species to Mana Island.
• He has raised more than $4 million for conservation projects and activities;
• Chair of Wellington branch, Forest & Bird for three years, during which time “Natural Wellington” (a strategic blueprint for restoring Wellington’s natural environment) and the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary were initiated by the Branch;
• Member of Forest and Bird National Executive for three years;
• He has run workshops on strategic planning for environmental groups;
• Foundation and current president of the Friends of Mana Island Inc;
• Foundation trustee and current Chair of the Wellington Natural Heritage Trust which purchased and manages an area of native forest in Wellington;
• Deputy Chair of Matiu/Somes Island Charitable Trust;
• Treasurer of Native Bird Rescue Wellington Trust;
• Treasurer of FOGNZ;
• Initiated and led successful campaigns to protect Baring Head and Watts Peninsula.
• Formed and current Treasurer of the Friends of the Taputeranga Marine Reserve and Friends of Baring Head.
• Awarded Forest and Bird “Old Blue” – a national award for services to nature conservation.
• Awarded Wellington Region Conservation Award 2005 as well as several national and regional volunteer awards in 2010.

Warwick Reed – Secretary

Retired secondary school teacher. In the early 1980’s Warwick worked at the Charles Darwin Research Station in Galapagos, initially constructing a vegetation map of Plaza Sur (the most frequently visited arid island of the archipelago) as part of a Human Impact study for PNG and CDRS. Subsequently he worked as Assistant Director for 18 months and was involved with evaluating incoming scientific study proposals, liaising between visiting scientists and PNG/CDRS staff, logistics for field trips and weekly meetings with PNG management. Warwick has maintained contact with several colleagues from that time and still has a strong interest in Galapagos and its future. On the local conservation scene he is active in the Thames Coast Kiwi Care predator control programme, the Thames Coast Preservation Society and is a member of Forest and Bird.

Julian Fitter 

Julian is a conservationist, naturalist and writer with a special interest in island ecosystem and the battle to rid those ecosystems of alien invaders. In 1964 he sailed to the Galapagos Islands and spent the next 15 years there, establishing the first yacht charter business there. In 1997 he was instrumental is setting up the UK based Galapagos Conservation Trust serving as its first Chairman, he is now one of their Ambassadors.

In 1977 Julian visited the Falkland Islands and became involved in developing tourism there. As a result he was closely involved  in establishing Falklands Conservation in 1981 and served as its first Secretary and is now their Vice President. He is a member of the Tristan Biodiversity Action Group which advises the Government of Tristan da Cunha, and Chair of the Maketu Ongatoro Wetland Group.

Julian has written two books; one on Galapagos wildlife, the other on New Zealand wildlife, with two more in the pipeline, and has contributed to a major work on Albatross. He has been living in New Zealand for the last four years and spends much of his time marvelling at New Zealand’s native fauna and flora.

Alan Saunders

Alan has worked as a conservation professional for more than 40 years – initially with the NZ Wildlife Service, and subsequently with the Department of conservation. He was involved in species recovery and habitat restoration programmes throughout NZ. More recently he has provided conservation advice and undertaken feasibility studies in the Pacific Region, including the Galapagos. Alan enjoys the opportunities that arise through working alongside communities, management agencies and donors to achieve agreed conservation outcomes. He sees the Friends of Galapagos NZ as an example of a network that unites people with complementary skills and perspectives, to achieve further conservation success.

Jean Fleming

Jean is a retired academic from the University of Otago and had a career as a researcher in health sciences (primarily reproductive biology,), followed by 6 years in Dunedin at the Centre for Science Communication (http://www.sciencecommunication.info/), running the Science in Society stream.

Jean comes from a family of scientists – her father, Charles Fleming, was knighted for services to science and conservation and while he never got to the Galapagos, the family all dreamed about going there. Jean did get to the Galapagos in 2012, as part of extended Study Leave where she became hooked on the wonder of the islands. She is experienced in science communication and public engagement and has helped run the International Science Festival in Dunedin for many years. She moved back to her tūrangawaewae in early 2015 and is now a Team Leader for stream restoration in the Kapiti Biodiversity Project , Waikanae.