Our Pete

In January 2022 we lost our Pete –colleague, mentor, and mate.

 

Pete had an incredible career, starting as a young buck in the Wildlife Service with early efforts to protect our threatened species, going on to fight for the protection of natural habitat and fisheries with Fish and Game, and finally spending a long period of his career driving for environmental limit-based sustainable land use. None of these roles were without their challenges and substantial tensions but Pete never wavered. Solid in his principles, objective in his analysis, good humoured and compassionate in his approach; Pete had a deep intellectual understanding of natural resource management and an equally solid grasp of the on-the-ground challenges. Pete was both ‘old school’ in his depth and breadth of knowledge and respect for first principles, and ‘and an ‘change leader’ in his recognition that current land-management models and approaches won’t adequately address contemporary challenges.

 

That Pete made a sustained and substantial contribution – particularly to natural capital focused approaches to nutrient management in the farm environment – cannot be understated. That his legacy work is not well known by a lot of people is simply because Pete just got on with the job, and delivered without great fanfare or desire for personal acknowledgement. While he detested working with bureaucracies or appearing before the decision makers, he was bloody good at working in these spaces, and with some very difficult people, to deliver results that most of us only dream about.

 

Pete didn’t suffer fools and had no time for bullshit, but was relentlessly generous in sharing his time, knowledge, and thoughts. Pete was the absolute best of mentors, and there is no doubt that his legacy will live on in the next generation of land management experts he taught and nurtured.

 

As much as Pete was a true expert professionally, he was an absolute demon as an adventurer and outdoors man. From Fiordland to the East Cape, Pete hunted, fished, rafted, walked, and played in almost every wild place across Aotearoa. Much of this he did with his friends and fellow adventurers, but always bringing the stories back to share what made him fizz with his amazing wife Mouse and sons Sam, Ben, and Jack. To the benefit of everyone, Pete’s taste in beer got a little more boujie over the past few years, and the more recent move to canned craft beer was a major breakthrough for back-country trip planning. Once again, Pete was an early adapter of good ideas.

 

It is pretty obvious we will miss Pete, his insights, knowledge, expertise, and unwavering support of us; but we are also going to miss him as the fantastic friend and part of our whānau that he was. Pete’s influence on us as a team and as individuals has been immense and will stay with us forever. That won’t stop us regularly blaming Pete for everything missing and broken around the office, or for anything that hasn’t quite worked out as we planned –and we know he wouldn’t have it any other way.