Honouring the legacy of Jan Riddell, champion for the environment

To honour her passion and dedication to protecting the natural environment, Jan Riddell’s husband Dave and daughter Emma have established a scholarship in her name to support postgraduate students at the University of Otago.

The Jan Riddell Memorial Scholarship commemorates Jan’s lifelong commitment to the conservation sector, in both her role as a hydrologist in Southland and her extensive voluntary work for local and national environmental organisations. Jan received the Queen’s Service Medal in 2004 for public service.

“The scholarship is a legacy to Jan,” says Dave. “My daughter and I thought it was a fitting tribute. It’s benefitting young people coming through the tertiary education system with similar aspirations, which was a key motivation.”

The scholarship provides support to a student undertaking postgraduate study with a focus on hydrology. Valued at $8,000, it is intended to help meet tuition and research-related costs. This year, Zoe Barbenel and Maya Berg from the School of Geography shared the inaugural scholarship.

“It gives the students with an interest in hydrology, ecology and the environment a bit of a leg up and it helps the student intake for the department as well, and I hope that those people have some impact in their lives,” says Dave.

He says hydrology is of increasing importance. “Climate change is the big word these days. Hydrology has flown under the radar for a long time, but you find the word hydrology being mentioned a lot more in relation to all sorts of activities these days, whether its storm events or general water-related problems in terms of community supplies, anything to do with water really.

“Ground water hydrology is a whole other area, which has come to the fore in recent times. Perhaps 30 years ago in Southland nobody knew much about groundwater hydrology at all because it just wasn’t an issue, there was no irrigation and nobody needed water. But in the last few years it’s become quite important, times change.”

Otago Geography Professor Nicolas Cullen, who is supervising Zoe and Maya in their postgraduate studies, says they have felt honoured to be supported by a scholarship which commemorates Jan Riddell.

“Jan’s achievements are extremely motivating for these young students,” says Nicolas. “She was awarded a Queen’s Service Medal and her life was dedicated to protecting the environment. It’s great for students to see that, it’s really inspiring for them.”

He says the scholarship provides students with the additional support they need to be able to find the capacity and time to do extra projects, which are beneficial to their studies, such as a recent field trip he led to Brewster Glacier, which both Zoe and Maya took part in.

The scholarship is also creating excitement within the School. “One of the benefits of the scholarship is that it creates an incentive for students to pursue hydrology at postgraduate level, which is such an important field,” says Nicolas.

Zoe and Maya both say they feel very privileged to receive the scholarship, and to be the first recipients to honour Jan’s legacy.

“Jan’s remarkable career and dedication to protecting the environment is truly inspiring,” says Maya. “It encourages me to strive for excellence in my studies and future career. I hope also to empower young women to see themselves as leaders in science and conservation, as she has.”

Maya has worked three part-time jobs during the year, as well as being a sea kayak and hiking guide over the summer, and says the scholarship enables her to do less paid work and focus on her studies and academic goals.

Her master’s research aims to use a seasonal snow model to simulate the historic and future snowpack on the Craigieburn Range in the Southern Alps.

Zoe’s honour’s project also looks at snow hydrology, specifically at the Pisa Range snowpack. Both studies aim to foster a greater understanding of how climate change will influence seasonal snow.

Zoe says the scholarship has helped her with daily living costs, and substantially alleviated financial stress.

She intends to remain in the hydrology/geology field and would like to work at the intersection of science and community, while Maya hopes to pursue an academic career in snow and ice hydrology.

Maya says, “like Jan, I hope to contribute to protecting and preserving the natural environment through meaningful research and collaborative action.”

A conservation legend from the south

Jan was raised on a farm in North Otago and graduated with a BSc (Hons) in 1977 from Otago, majoring in Geography and Geology, and she also studied Botany. Dave, also from a farm in North Otago, attended the University a few years ahead of Jan, graduating with a BSc in Geography, specialising in hydrology and climatology.

Dave says Jan was a “fastidiously studious” student. Both went on to postgraduate studies at Lincoln College, then joined the Ministry of Works in Wellington as scientists within the Water and Soil Division.

In this role, Jan worked with catchment boards across New Zealand to help them develop sufficient hydrological knowledge to utilise their water resources, especially in relation to infrastructure development.

She worked with people at many different levels of government to gain a good understanding of the political pressures on water. Dave says she had a great ability to argue a point of view based on good data and hold to her views under significant pressure.

“She was probably a bit ahead of her time in some ways in terms of environmental matters, especially the impacts of farming on the environment.”

Jan and Dave moved to Southland in 1983, and she started work for the Southland Acclimatisation Society, compiling databases on all the main Southland river catchments.

“Not only was she good at getting all this information into coherent, useful documents but she was prepared to get out in the field and get her feet wet, literally, to help get more data so it could be used to protect rivers, streams and wetlands.”

Jan served as a Southland Regional Councillor (Environment Southland) when the Council was formed in 1989, until 1995. After a 15-year break, she served another two terms from 2010 to 2016, when discharges of effluent from dairy farms to streams was an issue.

“In 1990 it was the start of the dairy boom in Southland, and she could see what the problems were going to be and tried to make people aware of it. But nobody really listened, it’s only in the last few years that people realised what she was on about and that maybe she was right.”

Jan regarded her work on the Waiau Working Party (WWP) as one of her most significant contributions to environmental protection. WWP was set up in 1990 to mitigate the adverse effects the Manapouri Power Station was having on the Waiau catchment.

The group comprised people from Tuatapere, Manapouri and Te Anau, farmers along the river, Forest and Bird, the Department of Conservation, jet boaters, local authorities and Fish and Game. Jan was elected Chair of this group and remained so until 2021.

Dave says one of Jan’s lasting legacies is the agreement and the compensation package WWP received from Meridian at the time of the resource consent renewal for Manapouri, including the process they went through and the amicable way it was all resolved.

From this agreement, the Waiau Fisheries and Wildlife Trust was formed, to restore wetlands and wildlife habitats in the catchment and improve access to Waiau River. Jan was the Trust’s planner, technician and sometimes negotiator, for 25 years.

Dave says, “she liked creating wetlands, putting back what’s been lost over the years, and the flow on effects for the macroinvertebrates, the fish and the rest.”

She was also a farmer, on their predominantly sheep farm, and put her botany knowledge to good use by establishing a native nursery, growing thousands of native seedlings and planting them around river and shelter belts on the farm.

In the early 1990s Jan was appointed Chair of the inaugural Southland Conservation Board, and in her second period on the Regional Council she was appointed as the Local Government representative on the NZ Conservation Authority.

Jan was also appointed to the Nature Heritage Fund (NHF) in 2001, becoming its Chair in 2017. She was involved in the protection of lands in the headwaters of many of the South Island’s major rivers, and during her time with the Fund helped put in protections for large areas of lowlands, including forest lands and large wetland areas.

She also served on the Southland Conservation Board between 1990-2001, the Forest Hill Foundation Trust and Gamebird Habitat Trust. Jan died in 2022, aged 67 years.

Eugenie Sage, in her time as Minister of Conservation, worked with Jan in her role as Chair of the NHF and as a member of the NZ Conservation Authority.

She describes Jan as “a conservation legend from the south. Someone with a deep love and knowledge of land, of water, rivers, streams and wetlands. A conservationist who knew and understood farming, hydrology, planning and local government. Jan was thoughtful, resolute and very humble. She was ambitious for people and nature and not herself.”