Page 5 - Issues131-133

Colin Ryder

Conservationist, Environmentalist,
Public Servant & Mini Bottle Collector

November 1st 1946 - March 9th 2021

Colin joined the club in 1983 and became a committee member a few months later. He dropped off
the committee after a year as his conservation commitments took more and more of his time. He
came back onto the committee as President in 1996 and remained NZMBC President for 25 years.
However, collecting minis was only a minor part of his life and so below is his obituary prepared for
the Dominion Post newspaper which shows what a multi-faceted achiever he was.
Colin Ryder left an enduring legacy on Wellington, be it the Taputeranga marine reserve he helped
establish at Island Bay, eradicating mice on Mana Island, or helping create Wellington's Te Kopahau
reserve on the South Coast.

A driving force of Wellington conservation for 30 years, he was a relentless campaigner and fund-raiser. A
colleague at his funeral said his mark on Wellington "will never be erased and never forgotten".

His sudden death at his Johnsonville home through an accident while renovating his house shocked the
environmental community as well as his family. (His daughter had to go through managed isolation for 14
days after coming from Australia for the funeral. His son, locked down in England because of the Covid
crisis, could only send a video message, saying he "could not believe he would have to say goodbye like
this.")
Ryder's most obvious distinguished feature was his broken nose, sustained while boxing in his home town
of Invercargill where he had a tough family upbringing.
His personality could veer from pugnaciousness to good humoured and single-minded dedication, traits he
carried through decades of conservation work and his career as a public servant in Wellington with the
Ministry of Energy, Electricity Corporation and later the Department of Corrections.
In 1979 he was the ministry's director of conservation , when he had to run the Government's controversial
nationwide petrol saving measure of carless days. Entire church congregations were writing protest letters
to the Minister because they could not use their cars, or buy petrol in the weekends. Coupons designating
which day of the week a vehicle could be used were also being traded on the black market, and Colin had
the tricky job of managing the scheme and enduring the political opprobrium being heaped on the
Government.
Although the year-long scheme saved only 4 percent of fuel use, it raised public consciousness about the
oil crisis and helped lay the groundwork for the Government's energy strategy, using Maui gas, which
followed.

In those energy crisis times he was a frequent visitor at the Minister's office.
Among earlier important involvements with energy was his role in chairing the team of government officials
that negotiated the joint venture contract for New Zealand's big offshore oil and gas field, Maui.
Negotiations with Shell, BP and Todd took two years _ the companies wanted rapid depletion to get a
better return on their capital investment. But the Government wanted slower depletion to ensure longer
term reliable energy supply.

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