Obituary: Dr Stella Frances

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

Conservationist, mother, scientist and politician. Died aged 55.

Dr Stella Frances was one of the country's leading conservationists, and one of her biggest worries involved the extraordinary changes that have taken place in NZ's environment since the arrival of humans.

"Many birds and reptiles are just hanging on," she said in 1998.

"We are moving fast to manage habitats for their survival. But are we moving fast enough?"

Dr Frances became the first woman conservator in the Department of Conservation. Coincidentally the date was International Women's Day, March 8, 1993.

She started with the department as Waikato regional conservator and took over as Auckland conservator five years later.

Dr Frances, who has just lost a 4 1/2-year battle with cancer, was born Stella Frances Barnes in England in 1948, but arrived in New Zealand at the age of 4 and grew up in Plimmerton, north of Wellington.

She was steeped in conservation from an early age, and her playgrounds were the bush and the beach. Her father was the biggest conservation influence in her formative years.

"He was horrified at the New Zealand attitude to trees - you know, if it gets in the way, chop it down," she told Herald writer Penelope Carroll.

After schooling (head girl at Mana College in Porirua East) she went to Otago University thinking of medicine but instead "wandered into" zoology.

Her fascination with freshwater biology was sparked by Professor Caroline Burns, who talked about using communities of stream invertebrates (animals without a backbone) as indicators of water purity.

"It grabbed me immediately. I saw myself as a GP of water bodies, diagnosing their health."

She did an honours degree and married fellow student Evan Penny. Further studies at Victoria University turned into a PhD in freshwater ecology, completed as her third son, Ben, was on the way.

She said this qualification gave her mana in a field where there were very few women. After lecturing at the University of Auckland, she went to Kuaotunu, north of Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula, studying the health of stream communities in the former gold mining locality for the Ministry of Works.

That began her career as a freshwater biological consultant.

She also became active in conservation issues, including being in the frontline of the campaign to save the Coromandel from mining.

She became a member of the Auckland Harbour Board (on Tim Shadbolt's Tim's Team ticket) and also a member of Environment Waikato. She was involved with Greenpeace and also became an inaugural member of the Conservation Authority.

Membership of this authority contributed to her strong association with the Department of Conservation and in 1989, as Stella Penny, she became Waikato Conservator.

Already she had observed in Waikato forests what she called the "quiet holocaust" going on, as possums, goats, dogs, cats, weasels, rats and stoats wiped out both birds and habitat.

The Director-General of Conservation, Hugh Logan, said last week that she brought great clarity to the conservator role.

She was involved in redeveloping the recreational focus of the Kauaeranga Valley and the historic development of the Karangahake Gorge and around Waihi.

Her move to become Auckland conservator brought her to a challenging area including the many Hauraki Gulf islands, a big population, powerful local government and many politicians.

Dr Frances interpreted the job as requiring "having a positive vision, without making promises you are unable to keep".

She had a practical way of viewing problems. Her view of 1080 poison to kill possums, for example, was that she saw no alternative.

"Every time you answer one question on 1080 it generates another. Nobody likes 1080. I totally understand how people feel about it - but if we don't take action we are going to lose our forests."

A tangihanga and funeral service was held for Dr Frances at the Paoa Whanaunga Marae near her home at Kaiaua, on the western shores of the Firth of Thames.

She is survived by her husband, Bill Brownell, three sons by her first marriage - Henry, Edwin and Benjamin - and her parents.