From a young age, Dave Rogers was destined to work on Taranaki Maunga. This 50-year conservation hero and veteran will retire in February.
Dave was born, raised, and schooled in Stratford, beneath Taranaki Maunga. He affiliates to Ngāti Mutunga, Te Atiawa, Taranaki Tūturu, Ngāti Ruanui and Maniapoto iwi – and he points to the stories told by his mother Miria and one of his grandfathers, Taikomako, of his whakapapa connecting him to the maunga.
"After I left school I worked in a local tannery near Stratford, for two years. I used to look at the mountain from my workstation every morning, and I would tell everybody 'I'm going to work up there one day," he says.
Dave's first role in the national park was in 1975 as part of a winter seasonal work scheme for unemployed people – he quit the tannery job to secure the opportunity with the Egmont National Park Board.
"I was working on tracks, mowing lawns, and servicing amenities – it was what our staff do now, ranger work."
He recalls a lot of time spent living in the bush, living out of a backpack and carrying out hard graft: "It'd be into the hut on a Monday morning, come out on a Friday afternoon – running down steps, racing your mates…real hands-on stuff. I learned heaps!"
He became the park foreman in the early 1980s, responsible for all park operations and up to 40 staff. He learned to manage people and how to get them into the right teams.
Dave says "putting a Māori lens" on management of the park was important to him – and helped raise his professional profile early in his career: "All of a sudden, I was being inundated with strategies and plans, with the request 'Dave, can you run your eye over this?'"
Dave says the creation of DOC in 1987 was a smart move – bringing various conservation organisations together under one umbrella and working more closely with Māori – and in the early 1990s he made a conscious decision to shift to an office-based role so he could influence strategic park planning and management more directly.
He's particularly proud of his effort to connect DOC and iwi. He sees a lot of similarities between his Māori values and DOC values and says he's constantly "walked both paths" through his career.
He looks fondly on work he's done or supported to enhance and protect the story-telling connected to some of the district's sites significant to Ngā Iwi o Taranaki – work often driven by his enthusiasm for history and whakapapa. The Pou Whenua at Dawson Falls – installed for the park's centenary and the subject of some debate - is one example he points to.
One of the biggest changes he's seen is the type of visitors in the national park. When he started it was bushmen and hunters, before the emergence of trampers and back-packers, and now foreign tourists and day-trippers out for a walk. Visitor numbers have shot up to more than 370,000 visitors a year.
He says the conservation sector needs to be careful in how visitor numbers are managed "in these special places": "It's important we never lose sight of what we're conserving, and who we're conserving it for."
Dave says although the conservation sector has changed a lot, much of the work remains the same.
"We've still got to cut tracks, we've still got to clean toilets, we've still got to maintain huts," he says.
"I still clean the odd DOC toilet now – because I'm the only ranger down here in South Taranaki… it's easier for me to go and it saves someone driving from New Plymouth!"
It's a testament to his character and commitment to the maunga and the park.
