History
The society was founded in 1923, as the Native Bird Protection Society. Later renamed as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, it has consistently advocated conservation issues, particularly for forested land.
Ernest Valentine Sanderson is acknowledged as the founder of Forest and Bird. In 1921, after his return from the First World War, the then Captain Val Sanderson was angered that the Kapiti Island wildlife reserve was unfenced and extensively damaged by cattle, sheep and goats. Sanderson campaigned for better management of Kapiti Island and succeeded in having it re-dedicated as a Wildlife Reserve. After this success, Sanderson held a public meeting in March 1923 which established the Native Bird Protection Society with Sir Thomas Mackenzie as the Society's first President. The New Zealand Forestry League, a forest conservation group already existed but it gradually died out. In 1935 Mackenzie and Sanderson renamed the society the Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand. Sanderson drove an expansion of the society’s range of interests into such areas as soil erosion and use of native trees for soil stabilisation. He became the president in 1933 a position which he held until his death in 1945 aged 79.
Until the 1970s, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society remained the only New Zealand environmental group. However in October 1971 the New Zealand Government proposed to harvest large areas of native South Island lowland beech forest with half the cleared area to be converted to exotic Pinus radiata. Along with the Save Manapouri Campaign, the native forest harvesting prompted more public awareness of conservation and the formation of new environmental groups such as the Beech Forest Action Committee. In response to the native forest harvesting, on 4 July 1975 Forest and Bird and Beech Forest Action Committee started the Maruia Declaration as a public petition demanding an end to native forest logging and legal recognition of native forests. The Maruia Declaration was submitted to the New Zealand Government in 1977.
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