Baring Head: Support Colin Ryder’s Restoration Dream

In 2010 Colin Ryder led a community effort to protect the land at Baring Head as a regional park. Since then, as Treasurer of Friends of Baring Head, he raised over $400,000 to support restoration of the lighthouse complex and natural values of the park, and oversaw the design of the historic restoration and interpretation projects. But he didn’t just sit at home doing Treasurer work (although he did hundreds of hours of grant application preparation and related work). He ran a trap line, painted buildings, did talks to groups, and dozens of other jobs over the last 10 years.

On 9 March 2021 he died suddenly, leaving his dream uncompleted. His family have asked that donations be provided to Friends of Baring Head, in lieu of flowers. The Trust will dedicate these funds to one of the projects that he was keen to see progressed with future funding. The family will be able to choose from among the projects that have already been through the planning stage and had his approval. That will most likely be some further development around the lighthouse complex to enable visitors to better enjoy the area and understand its history.

Friends of Baring Head was set up to support management of the Baring Head part of East Harbour Regional Park. It has helped achieve:

• Restoration of the historic pumphouse

• Replacement of asbestos roofs on the lighthouse buildings and basic fixes to the buildings.

• External painting of the generator house, one of the houses, the garage, and the sheds

• Conversion of the garage into a volunteer base

• Conversion of the generator house into a day shelter and story hub

• Retirement from grazing of most of the river valley

• Planting of thousands of trees

• Protection of coastal wetlands and turf communities

• Protection of a large gully on the south coast

• Implementation of a complete trapping network across the area

• Control of a wide range of weeds

• Initiation of a rare plant programme

• Initiation of an invertebrate conservation programme

• Protection of the banded dotterels during nesting

• Provision of seats for visitors