Category: People

OK, so as a middle-aged person, I am supposed to spend my days stealing houses from Millennials, misinterpreting their profound social media posts as self-entitled whining (Dang, got sidetracked onto Millennnials again. Must. Focus.), consuming more than my share, and generally not caring a jot as the planet cooks.

But a chance remark got me thinking: is the Puangiangi restoration project 100% wonderful in every respect, or is it an insidious little contributor to climate disaster dressed up as something else?

I already knew that the single biggest thing an individual can do to halt anthropogenic climate change, is not travel internationally (thank you, SEWTHA) (Ref. 1). It was a pretty short leap to imagine what using chartered helicopters on the island project might be doing,  but where does short-haul travel on a 50-seater plane and use of cars, ferries and water taxis come in?

I made a list of things we are doing on the project that might be hurting, and a list of things that might be helping. Then it was a matter of looking at each one and deciding if they were significant, and adding them up.

I figured that it would be best to look at the incremental effects of the project, over and above what I would otherwise be doing with my time. So I’m looking at: the extra travel; the extra resource consumption, beyond just living a normal and hopefully not too impactful life back in town; and on the plus side, considering any CO2 that is being sequestered as a result of the project. If you like, this is by way of a voluntary report based on the guidelines for corporate greenhouse gas reporting published by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE) (Refs 2 and 3). Throughout, I will be referring to CO2-e:  Carbon Dioxide equivalents, measured in kg or tonnes of CO2 per unit of activity. So, here goes:

Travel

The project involves about 12 visits a year: 10 by plane from Wellington to Nelson, car to French Pass, charter boat to Puangiangi, and return; and 2 by ferry from Wellington to Picton, car from Picton to Rai (and Peter driving out from Nelson to Rai), then to French Pass, boat, and return. The harshest interpretation is to say that all this travel is incremental. So although, for example, we aren’t using our cars in the city while we are on the island, I’m saying we would be saving up the trips we would otherwise have taken and doing them on our return.

Air New Zealand publishes a calculator (Ref. 4) that says a trip for one passenger on their Wellington-Nelson flight produces 19 kg CO2-e (38 kg for the return trip). I’m taking the following figures for petrol and diesel to work out the car and charter boat side of things: 250 g CO2-e per km driven for a medium car over a windy road (extrapolated from figures in Ref. 3), and diesel consumption of 40 L/hr on the charter boat (one hour one-way) at 2.72 kg CO2-e per litre (Ref. 3). For the ferry, I’m using a published figure for smaller roll on-roll off vessels of 60 g CO2-e per tonne-km (Ref. 5) which, allowing 2 tonnes for the weight of my vehicle, me and freight, and a distance of just under 100 km, gives 12 kg CO2-e for a one-way trip.

This all adds up to a CO2-e of 316 kg for a return trip using the plane, and 352 kg for a return trip involving the ferry (which has extra car travel). That gives an annual travel CO2-e of 3.9 tonnes, with the boat charter constituting nearly 70%. The best thing we could be doing to lower the travel footprint is to try to take charter boat trips when the skipper is using his boat for something else at the same time. When several people are coming from Wellington on a trip, and of course if a lot of freight is being carried, the ferry route would be a good idea.

Helicopters

Sometimes we need to use helicopters, such as for weed spraying on the cliffs, or for moving animals on or off where their welfare requires the less time in boxes the better. I’m guessing about 4 hours of helicopter time a year. A twin-engined Squirrel uses 180 L of avgas an hour (Ref. 6), which makes for a CO2-e of 1.8 tonnes per year.

Living and Working On Site

In looking at the emissions resulting from working on the island, I identified LPG use for cooking and hot water, wood for heating, petrol for scrub bars, chainsaws and the like, solar panels and batteries for power, and we have a fridge. Most of this is incremental usage as our houses back in town are still occupied while we are away.

We use an 18 kg bottle of LPG in about 3 months. At 3.03 kg CO2-e per kg of LPG (Ref. 3), that’s 0.22 tonnes per year. We use about 10 L (7 kg) of petrol every two months. At 2.36 kg CO2-e per kg (Ref. 3), that’s a further 0.10 tonnes per year. We burn perhaps 200 kg of firewood a year, which at the published 0.0795 kg CO2-e per kg (Ref. 3) is only 0.02 tonnes CO2-e. I can’t get my head around the derivation of the firewood numbers.

Standard domestic fridges are held to lose 3% of their refrigerant per year (Ref. 2). Taking the 100 grams of refrigerant to have 2000 times the global warming potential of CO2, that makes for 0.006 tonnes CO2-e per year.

The MFE guidelines for reporting don’t address life cycle analyses, but I also wondered what the effect of the solar power system might be. A solar panel array, the inverter equipment and the aluminium racking are thought to have a footprint of about 500 tonnes of CO2-e per MW of installed capacity (Ref. 7). Our system is 2.28 kW, so over a lifetime of say 15 years and assuming it doesn’t get recycled, that is a burden of 0.08 tonnes per year. The lead-acid batteries are held to have a footprint of 1.14 kg CO2-e per kg (Ref. 8). I think this allows for the lead to be recycled but I’m not sure. For 800 kg of batteries and a ten-year life, that comes to 0.09 tonnes CO2-e per year. Our special situation requires the spent batteries to be flown off for recycling (and new ones on at the same time), and a 1.4-hour helicopter trip once in 10 years will add about 0.06 tonnes CO2-e per year.

These living and project work components add up to 0.6 tonnes CO2-e per year.

In summary, the biggest burdens are travel to and from the project site, and helicopter use on the project. The sum of the identified emissions is 6.3 tonnes CO2-e per year.

Sequestration: Forest Regeneration

What of the offsets inherent in the project that we can use to balance up the emissions side of things? I have used the lookup tables published by the Carbon Farming Group (Refs 9 and 10).

Puangiangi has about 10 Ha of mature coastal broadleaf forests. We could assume that they are now only maintaining themselves rather than actively growing, or at best storing about a tonne per hectare per year.

Sheep were excluded from both ends of the island in around 1996,  and the 20 Ha of shrublands and developing forests could therefore be said to be at Year 23, sequestering 11 tonnes CO2 per hectare, falling to a bit over 3 tonnes per hectare in 15 years’ time.

We removed the sheep entirely about 6 years ago, and if the 17 Ha of regenerating pasturelands are therefore said to be at Year 6, they are currently sequestering about 4 tonnes per hectare.

So, for the current year, CO2 is probably being sequestered in the newer forests and regenerating pasture at about 288 tonnes CO2-e per year. In 15 years, say when the need for active intervention in the restoration, and associated CO2-e emissions, is much less, offsetting would still be around 250 tonnes per year.

I’m not sure how much of this CO2 being put away is down to the project and how much might have happened anyway. If we hadn’t become involved, the island might have remained uninhabited and the 20 sheep present in 2012 might have persisted, say for 10 more years (they had already managed 8 by themselves since 2004 when Ross Webber left). Or indeed someone might have taken it over as a lifestyle block and run 20 sheep, 15 alpacas and a pony. To a first approximation, the sheep might have had an effect equivalent to completely preventing regeneration on the 17 Ha of central pasturelands: that 17 Ha would have become populated with the unpalatable tauhinu, which stores CO2 as well as anything else, but the sheep might well have had an opposite effect on the broadleaf shrublands and developing forest (the fencing present in 1996 had been allowed to fall into disrepair by 2012, and gates had been left open, so if things had just carried on the sheep would have been in the regenerating areas more and more as the tauhinu took over the pasture). The lookup tables say that if regeneration of 17 Ha pasture were prevented by the sheep for 10 years, then a total of 40 tonnes CO2-e per hectare (680 tonnes total, or about 10 rising to 130 tonnes CO2-e per year from year 1 to 10) would not have been stored.

On top of that would be the effect of methane emissions from the sheep, of which there were about 20 in 2012 when we arrived. Methane has 25 times the long-run global warming potential of CO2 (Ref. 11). Sheep methane emissions are in the range 9-35 grams per day per sheep (Ref. 12). Let’s say the island sheep were right at the low end of that range. That still adds up to 1.6 tonnes of CO2-e per year for the time the flock persisted.

Conclusions

It’s hardly surprising that our activities are easily offset by forest regrowth, if a bit harder to say how much of the forest regrowth is incremental because of our actions, but it’s worth the exercise to set it out on paper. I wouldn’t have guessed that simply removing the sheep would have had such a benefit. So I’m somewhat reassured, even given my simplistic calculations. The value for readers might be in having a look at the references and thinking about their own situation. Millennials: do factor in the effect of having your Uber Eats delivered (Dang. Almost made it).

References (all links accessed June 2019)

1. Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air. See for example: https://commonsciencespace.com/energy-sensible-sewtha/
2. https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/voluntary-greenhouse-gas-reporting-2015-year.pdf
3. https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/voluntary-ghg-reporting-summary-tables-emissions-factors-2015.pdf
4. https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/loyaltymodule/form/carbon-emissions-offset
5. https://www.ecta.com/resources/Documents/Best%20Practices%20Guidelines/guideline_for_measuring_and_managing_co2.pdf
6. http://www.skyworkhelicopters.com/company/helicopter-fleet.cfm
7. https://www.appropedia.org/LCA_of_silicon_PV_panels
8. https://www.apc.com/salestools/VAVR-9KZQVW/VAVR-9KZQVW_R0_EN.pdf?sdirect=true
9. https://www.carbonfarming.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/InfoSheet_13New.pdf
10. https://www.carbonfarming.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011-ETS-look-up-tables-guide.pdf
11. https://www.nzagrc.org.nz/methane-1.html
12. https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/greenhouse-gases/agricultural-greenhouse-gases/methane-emissions

…(Back to Part 1)…

The owner of Puangiangi from 1929 was R J W (Bismark or Biz) King-Turner, who was farming at Hamilton Bay. In 1888 his parents were among the first pakeha to settle in Waitata Bay, taking 18-month-old Bismark with them from his birthplace of Portage. There was no school and he was able to read and write by 16 only through private study. He also travelled to England for further education for a short time in the early 1900s.

Granddaughter Adrienne King-Turner writes that the four boys of the family would row from Waitata Bay to Havelock for provisions every few weeks. They would stay at the boarding-house, find a drink and perhaps a fight for entertainment, and row home the next day.

The younger Bismark King-Turner worked as a shearer and bushman. He was also farm manager for eight months at Port Hardy, earning two pounds a week and board, and had a stint as a commercial fisherman from 1920, around which time he was leasing Puangiangi and basing his farming at Hamilton Bay. In 1911 he had married Rose Reilly. Rose was out of an orphanage in Wellington, sent to the Sounds in the early years of the 20th century as a schoolteacher.

He was confident, clearly ambitious and is described by a descendant as free-spending and devoting a fair bit of time to “sucking up” in Wellington. It appeared that middle son Lewis left school at 12 because there was no money for boarding school as a result of his father’s spending.

As early as 1922, Bismark had applied to become a Justice of the Peace and was recommended by Member of Parliament Harry Atmore. JPs were very useful people especially in out-of-the-way places. The application lapsed for a few years but eventually Police enquiries were made into Bismark’s character. Mounted Constable F H Healy of Blenheim wrote in 1925 that the “Turner brothers” were suspected of sheep-stealing with the aid of a launch. Right at Ministerial level, the Department of Justice decided not to appoint him as a JP despite there being no proof of any theft. Officials wrote that they had no obligation to provide a justification for the non-appointment, and that as long as the reason never came out, there was no risk of a claim for damages arising. It doesn’t look like King-Turner was best friends with Percy Douglas Hope after their contretemps with competing flocks on Puangiangi, so perhaps there was a pool of candidates to make sheep-stealing allegations, true or not. Daughter-in-law Elsie went on to become a JP in the area. Bismark did not miss out on public office either, later serving on the French Pass Road Board and the Marlborough Hospital Board.

Puangiangi was clearly only a small part of the wider King-Turner farming operation. Even for established families like the King-Turners though, times were becoming hard. Already they were farming a long way from where their wool and sheep needed to end up (Bismark’s eldest son Irwyn and brother Bert were recalled as driving sheep from French Pass to Christchurch by way of Molesworth Station during the 1930s). Then the Great Depression came along to make things harder.

Puangiangi went in a mortgagee sale in 1939, as the after-effects of the Depression were still being felt. I don’t know if this was just one of the dominoes to fall, if it was sacrificed to save the better farming assets, or whether the timing had nothing to do with hardship. Perhaps it is significant that Bismark had moved from Hamilton Bay to farm at Waiua (possibly the Block IX mentioned in Part 1) a year previously. The strange thing was that the mortgagee (a company- the old title is very hard to read) sold the island to Bismark’s son Lewis Verdun King-Turner. I presume the mortgagee was under no obligation to conduct an open sale if they had been lending their own money, or perhaps there was and the son was the highest tenderer. Arguably the company name on the title reads as Lewis and Company, and that may point to this just being part of complicated intra-family transactions. Adrienne King-Turner says her father Lewis and grandfather Bismark did not get on, and maybe that is relevant. Lewis’ nephew Ray King-Turner recalls the mortgage being in the region of 70 Pounds.

Lewis’ daughter Adrienne King-Turner recalls that “my dad was apparently a dreamy child, yet intelligent and imaginative, who distinguished himself at school, yet had to leave at 12. Dad, like so many of earlier eras, simply ended up doing the only thing he knew. He was knowledgeable, opinionated and knew about mending and erecting fences to keep those wily sheep in, yet I suspect his inclinations were to be an advocate for others. He was passionate about injustice, no matter where it was found. He loathed big business, admired independent politicians, small businessmen and family-run operations, yet couldn’t work with either his own dad nor his father in law…”

If Puangiangi was peripheral to Bismark, it was central to Lewis. His son Tony recalls that Lewis talked of the island often and had loved it there. The War intervened, however. Lewis volunteered and served in the Western Desert. Father Bismark looked after Puangiangi.

Nephew Ray recalls: “as a gunner, [Lewis] was the loader on the gun crew. He was stocky and broad shouldered and could perform incredible feats of strength and agility when his blood was up. I went to his funeral and met some of his old comrades and they told me he was acknowledged by his peers as the strongest and fastest loader in the 6th Field Regiment. They told me of a time when the regiment was attacked by a German armoured column. The attack was beaten off and some prisoners were taken.  As they were marched away some asked to be allowed to see the “Automatic 25-Pounder,” the one gun that was firing faster than all the rest. They were told that there was no “automatic” but they said “that one” and they pointed to Lewis’s gun. I asked a [former] artillery officer about it and he said “oh yes- if they were a very good gun crew and then only for a short time.” I can picture him in the heat of battle roaring and cursing and urging his mates on and showing the enemy how the D’Urville Island breed took care of business. [At one time] he was in action and the rammer broke. The rammer was used to drive the shells into the breech of the gun. Lewis kept the gun in action by using his right arm as the rammer and sustained severe burns to his arm in the process.”

At the end of the war, Lewis Verdun King-Turner returned to the area and on Puangiangi carved his initials into his new concrete sheep dip on 17 April 1945. The dip is still there and holds water, which collects off the roof of the adjacent “woolshed”. I can’t tell if the building is from that time or whether the sheep dip was a later addition.

The yards, building and dip are a few metres from the sea, and on the rocks at water’s edge are some remnants of concrete, and some bigger chunks that have broken off and can be seen at low tide. This would have been to provide a better landing point for freight, and stock from the barge.

Ray King-Turner recalls assisting uncle Lewis and father Irwyn in landing stock some time after the end of the war. Bill Webber of French Pass recalled that Irwyn was closely associated with Puangiangi along with Lewis. Lewis never lived on Puangiangi. The one thing he didn’t like there was the colonising shrub tauhinu (universally referred to by farmers as tawinnie, usually with a preceding adjective) and I expect many hours were spent on the end of a slasher or grubber.

By the early 1950’s, Lewis was living in Nelson with his wife Doris. Daughter Adrienne recalls that in 1954-5 Puangiangi was at least a day’s journey from Nelson, initially by coaster to French Pass (the road was completed only in 1957). Lewis, Doris and little Adrienne (who had whooping cough), stayed in the whare while Lewis sheared sheep: “…no electricity. We three slept in the whare, which has corrugated iron walls and a bed in a corner. All the studwork for the corrugated iron was used as shelving for candles, condensed milk and so on.”

“I was extremely weak and recall sitting, propped up against pillows with a colouring book, whilst the wind whistled around the shed. To encourage me to colour-in, my mother completed one of the pictures. I was so impressed with the uniformity of her shading and ability to stay within the lines, that I asked her to colour another and another. At some point I was well enough to walk outside and my memories are of steep slopes, sheep, Dad mustering them into a yard nearby and very strongly, Scarlet Pimpernel, a wildflower. Years later, I wrote to Ross Webber (after having read an article on him in the [New Zealand] Geographic magazine), mentioning this cheerful flower and he kindly sent me a dried, pressed sample.”

Lewis King-Turner, like so many who returned from the war, struggled with his health, and eventually on his doctor’s advice decided to sell up. Adrienne: “I recall my mother saying [in 1957] she felt like the richest woman alive, walking up Trafalgar St with £1,000 in her handbag from the Island’s sale. Later that year they bought approximately 50 acres near Nelson and the ‘Rabbit Island’ (refer to Part 1 for Puangiangi being referred to as Rabbit Island by another person) money paid for more than half its cost. Dad transported the island’s sheep to the Nelson farm…but he said many of them did not acclimatise well and died.” Peter recently lent me Ian Atkinson and Rowley Taylor’s 1991 report on mammals on New Zealand’s islands, and Puangiangi is listed as having formerly held rabbits, but that they died out or were eradicated some time before the report was compiled.

Puangiangi’s new owner from 1957 was William Ross Webber, who will be the subject of Part 3.

Robert John William (Bismark) King-Turner retired to Nelson in 1950, and established the Nelson Senior Citizens Old Folks Association in 1951. He was the group’s president until he died in 1966. Rose had died in 1955.

Lewis Verdun King-Turner died in 1993 and is fondly remembered by his family. After Lewis’ death, son Tony visited Puangiangi and stayed with Ross Webber. Doris King-Turner died just last year. She acquired fame later in life when she married New Zealand’s oldest immigrant, Eric King-Turner (no relation), who was 102 when he arrived.

The whare and sheep dip are still standing- only just in the case of the whare. A macrocarpa fell through it a couple of years ago and it is sitting at an odd angle. Birds like to bathe in the sheep dip, despite having a shiny new water supply nearby. We assume the dip chemicals have long dissipated. The bloody tawinnie continues its march and is now sheltering bird-dispersed broadleaf saplings and even providing robin habitat.

Thanks to: Adrienne, Philip, Ray, Tony, and Gabriel King-Turner.

Other sources:

http://www.theprow.org.nz/society/old-folks-hall-nelson/#.WmAilnnRXIV (Biographical notes on RJW King-Turner).

“For appointment of RJW Turner of D’Urville Is., French Pass, as a Justice of the Peace”, National Archives, Wellington, Ref J11018, Record 1922/1232, Container Code C466285.

I A E Atkinson and R H Taylor, “Distribution of Alien Mammals on New Zealand Islands”, DSIR Land Resources Report 91/50, 1991.