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Visionary or dreamer? - David Bellamy fronts up

Wednesday 24 June 2009, 4:15PM

By Steve Brightwell

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BAY OF PLENTY

It’s easy to be smart in hindsight, but fronting up in public 25 years after the fact to justify your bold predictions is a tad harder.

That’s the challenge world-renowned botanist and television presenter Dr David Bellamy faces in Rotorua in September.

Back in 1984, Bellamy argued for the total protection of Whirinaki Forest Park in the southwestern corner of Whakatane District as a way of creating a sustainable future for the then forestry-based communities in the area.

On September 4, he will front up to a gala dinner audience and reflect on that lofty goal.

At first glance it may appear the irrepressible Bellamy will be having a good feed of humble pie to follow the wine and indigenously-derived New Zealand cuisine the gala dinner offers.

But, if nothing else, the world’s best-known treehugger is an optimist and recent developments at Whirinaki indicate his vision may not be all that far off track.

The signing of an agreement in principle between the Crown and Ngati Whare – for whom the forest is home – and the development of a self-started tourism cluster supporting the new Te Urewera Rainforest Route are all beacons towards a prosperous future underpinned by eco-tourism.

Bellamy will not have missed these developments.

Nor will he have missed that even today there is still more being discovered about the dinosaur forest – things such as the Whirinaki skink; a lizard known only from a single piece of video footage.

How these things stack up in relation to the original dream is the big question.

There’s likely to be a suitably big answer.

The best way to find out what it is, is to join the party at Rotorua’s Novotel and be prepared to sit back with a wine or two, some great food and what is sure to be an entertaining evening of reflection from Dr David Bellamy.

Tickets cost $150 with a limited number available.

For sales enquiries contact theorganiser@rotoruanz.com ; phone 07 343 1732 or fax 07 343 1740.

 

Whirinaki 25 event details

 

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