John Staniland

John is a co-leader of the A Rocha local group in Auckland. Now a retired secondary school teacher, he has been closely involved with Forest and Bird for fifty years and was the first chairman of its Waitakere Branch.

He is a founder and honorary ranger of the Society’s 120 hectare Matuku Reserve in the Waitakere Valley behind Bethells Beach, having organised the purchase of several blocks of forest to bring the reserve to its present size, and he lives with his wife on their adjoining bush property. He is one of the founders of the 2100 ha Ark in the Park pest control project in the Waitakere Ranges at the head of this catchment and is a trustee of the nearby Matuku Link, a block of native forest but also of degraded farmland which is currently being planted and restored to a natural wetland.

He has a good knowledge of the vegetation of this area and its bird life and is particularly interested in New Zealand’s different forest types and in educating people about them. John is also active in the Ornithological Society and Botanical Society. He regularly plants or weeds in two of A Rocha Auckland’s project sites and leads A Rocha’s modest contribution to pest control in the Ark.

Please see here for more information about the Auckland local group, or email [email protected] to get in touch with John.