Peter De Lange Awarded New Zealand Botanical Society 2006 Allan Mere
The Allan Mere – a greenstone/pounamu (nephrite) hand club was originally presented to the former DSIR Botany Division by the late Dr Lucy Moore during the 1980’s to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the birthday of Harry Howard Allan - the first Director of the former DSIR Botany Division, and author of the first volume of the DSIR New Zealand Flora series. It was Lucy’s intention that the award be presented - not necessarily annually - to those staff members who had made the most significant contribution to New Zealand Botany.With the demise of the DSIR Botany Division the Allan Mere was passed over to the New Zealand Botanical Society who now award, on much the same basis as Lucy Moore had intended, to those candidates nominated by the various regional botanical societies.
Peter de Lange graduated with an M.Sc (Hons) in Earth Sciences from the University of Waikato in 1990. His thesis explored the tephrochronostratigraphy and palaeoecology of the Kopouatai Peat Dome. At first he worked for the Aquatic Plants Division of MAF (now NIWA) on surveys of the wetland and lake vegetation of the lowland lakes of the greater Waikato before taking up his current position as Threatened Plant Scientist with the New Zealand Department of Conservation in May 1990.
De Lange was nominated by former Allan Mere recipients Mr Ewen Cameron (Curator of Botany, Auckland Museum) and Mr Colin Ogle. Their application was supported by numerous letters of support from botanical societies, and both specialist and amateur botanists from within and outside New Zealand. De Lange, played a significant role in past threatened plant listing’s, being a member of the New Zealand Botanical Society Threatened Plant Committee (1993-1999), which published three listings before it was disbanded by the Department of Conservation. He also, together with Dr David Norton of the University of Canterbury, was a major player in the move away from the IUCN Red Data Book Categories and Listing system to a more appropriate New Zealand Based Threat Classification that has been adopted for all New Zealand biota by the Department of Conservation.
Over the last 16 years de Lange has published 90 papers in peer-reviewed literature dealing mainly with vascular plant biosystematics and conservation but also with palaeoecology, earthquake prediction, biogeography, volcanology and even on the role waterspouts play in vegetation succession on offshore islands. He has published several book chapters – most recently one on Hebe conservation in the recently published “An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Hebes” by Michael Bayly and Alison Kellow (Te Papa Press, Wellington), at least three books and has written the bulk of the NZPCN Threatened Plant Field Guide, due for publication sometime next year. De Lange is a free collaborator and enjoys working with other scientists, most notably, Dr Peter Heenan of Landcare, which has earned them both the epithet “The two Peter’s”… had Lucy Moore lived she may have been amused, as she and Lucy Cranwell were of course the “Two Lucies”. He has collected an estimated 13000 herbarium specimens mainly from New Zealand, but also from eastern Australia, Norfolk, Rarotonga and the Hawaiian Islands. Currently he is working toward the completion of his PhD on the Biosystematics of the Kunzea ericoides complex at the University of Auckland.
In 2003 his work in plant biosystematics was recognised by the London based Linnean Society who awarded him an FLS, and he was last year’s inaugural recipient of the NZPCN Individual Plant Conservation Achievement award.
The award will be officially presented at the joint New Zealand Botanical Society/NZPCN Cheeseman Conference to be held at the University of Auckland and Auckland Museum on November 20-22, 2006.
Posted: 07/09/2006