Longlisted for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Illustrated Non-fiction award

"Grand in both its scope and its presentation, authors David Young and Naomi Arnold navigate large swathes of material with remarkable economy and skill. It's also the year's best-looking book ... this is an important social history, and even if you don't know your kaki from your kea, Force of nature deserves your attention."

Matthew Littlewood, Otago Daily Times

"The volume is physically beautiful – large format hardback, on quality paper, lavishly illustrated by photos. It would be a glib assessment for anyone to term it a coffee-table book though it would certainly grace any such table, because it is so much more than that. Thousands of New Zealanders will find within its pages satisfaction not only at learning more of the work of Forest & Bird, but finding acknowledgement of how much has been given in terms of time, resources and expertise by so many citizens over the past hundred years. Growing up the daughter of one of its avid members and volunteer workers dedicated to the principles the Society stands for, I thought I was reasonably familiar with at least part of its work during those years, but this book puts that mere slice of background into much wider perspective with a full account of the aims and achievements since its beginnings..."

Bronwyn Elsmore, Flaxroots

"For over century, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand (Forest & Bird) has been at the heart of the nation’s abundant and ground-breaking conservation efforts. Now a new richly illustrated book, Force of Nature Te Aumangea o te ao Tūroa, A conservation history of Forest & Bird (1923-2023), celebrates the thousands of New Zealanders to contribute. The book highlights the stories of those who got their hands dirty during the conservation movement's early days — including Geoffrey Orbell who tracked down the thought-to-be-extinct takehe, and Arthur Harper, the society’s president for seven years from 1948.  Susana is joined by Justin Jordon, grandson of Forest & Bird founder Captain Earnest Valentine 'Val' Sanderson, and Caroline Wood, the book's editor."

RNZ

What drives the heroes of conservation?

"The heroes of this conservation history are often motivated initially by a deep sense of caring for place and for natural life: be it whenua (land), ngahere (forest), wai (freshwater) or moana (ocean). This is often from a local perspective, it may involve protecting a species. Sometimes they are scientifically well-informed, some may come from a spiritual perspective (to David’s mind these are not mutually exclusive). Inevitably they are public-spirited.

"Campaigning aside, much of this work is physical. The volunteers are often out in all weathers, because planting is essentially a winter activity while trapping never stops and for many, new seed stock must go on. For professional botanists and ornithologists, often working alone, their observations require ingenuity and time to make informed conclusions. Such work is sometimes strenuous if not physically dangerous.

"Whether it’s a piece of threatened forest, a river’s integrity, an endangered species, a compromised shoreline or a potential marine or island reserve, our history suggests that a sense of public good, of what we might call ‘natural justice’, drives conservationists. Their commitment and their often real sacrifices become life-long and, over time, as diverse in their concerns as the ecology they serve. This book charts a growth over lives and generations into deeper, evolving ecological knowledge. For many Pakeha this becomes a connection with place. Conservation under wise leadership enriches community, can generate a greater sense of shared mātauranga – evident from the society’s very foundations forward – and the sense of what it is to belong to these motu. Without these shared values, in my opinion, we are lost as a nation."

Read more at NZ Booklovers

How has our conservation movement evolved over the past century, and what key challenges does it face today?

"Its leadership has managed to continue to develop an increasing degree of sophistication. Science has evolved into more subtle appreciation of this country’s special ecology, its plants and birds, insects, lizards, fish and soil. Preservation of species, reserves, parks and off-shore islands is where conservation started. Today’s predator-proof sanctuaries and marine reserves (still way too few) and species transfer techniques have been world-leading. Community conservation projects are, for many of us, now part of Kiwi life. But unchecked climate change could in a few decades render human agency powerless for centuries. Governments still operating only on a business-as-usual model are aiding and abetting a profoundly disruptive future...."

Read more at The Post

"Occasionally we’d turn up an oddity in the archives: we found a kākāpō feather in the letters files at the Turnbull (see Forest & Bird Spring 2020), examples of children’s badges, and a gecko skin attached to a letter in the Poor Knights letters file at Archives New Zealand in Auckland, later identified by Colin Miskelly of Te Papa as from a Dactylocnemis gecko...."

Read more by archivist Michael Pringle at Forest & Bird

"Lawyer, explorer, businessman, and conservationist, Arthur Harper served as the Society’s president from 1948 for seven years, remaining an active advocate until his death in May 1955, one month shy of his ninetieth birthday. Born in Christchurch in 1865, Arthur had an impeccable Canterbury (New Zealand) pedigree, an Oxford (England) law degree, and was called to the bar at London’s Inner Temple in 1888.1

Taking up mountaineering in Switzerland in 1887, Arthur had climbed in the European Alps. His love affair with mountains and his exploration of the trackless West Coast burnished his own legendary qualities.

He spent several years surveying beside the famed Charlie Douglas on the payroll of Lands and Survey, and later searched for payable gold. Arthur confessed he had once dined with Douglas on kea, while tramping in the Southern Alps...."

Read more

'Māori are living with and from nature, so we want to live in a way that is sustainable,’ he says.1 ‘We are trying to avoid the situation where we look at nature or te taiao as a thing that you put into a museum; you create this beautiful thing and then you lock the door, and you stand on the outside and look at it. We wanted to change that focus, and be: “We are living with nature, we are of nature.” So that’s part of our role as kaitiaki. These values are so strong and so aligned to what Forest & Bird says about bringing back nature to our landscapes and to our cities – but mostly to the people’s minds so that they really do love, appreciate, and nurture that taonga.’ Those two Māori and Pākehā views ‘supercharge’ each other, he says. He asks what people today want to leave behind for those yet to be born: ‘How can each of us be really good ancestors?’"

Read more

Force of Nature Te Aumangea o te ao Tūroa, is the inspiring history of Forest & Bird, New Zealand’s oldest independent conservation organisation for over 100 years. Beginning in 1923, Forest & Bird have been involved in all of the significant environmental campaigns of the last century, starting with efforts to protect native birds and their forest habitat, creation of many of the national parks and in recent decades efforts to protect our marine environment and attempts to tackle climate change. This book is highly readable and heavily illustrated, with a focus on the remarkable people involved in conservation work in New Zealand.