Neil Clifton, Ranger Record: Ranger Exchange, Peak District National Park, England, 1985

In August 1984 I was advised that I had been selected to undertake a 4 month ranger exchange with the Peak District National Park in the UK.  Terry Tallis, a senior ranger at the Peak District, was the other partner in the exchange and he and his family were placed at Tongariro. Our family was provided with a cottage in a small village in Derbyshire within the Peak District National Park.

The contrast between working on the West Coast to being implanted as a ranger in England’s oldest national park, was amazing.  English national parks are predominantly privately owned land, protected for their landscape values.  The role of the rangers is to manage visitor access over private land in liaison with landowners, predominantly farmers of large estates.  About 20 million people lived within 60 miles of the park boundary.

A lot of the day to day work was carried out by highly organised volunteer conservation groups.  As a ranger, I was involved in patrolling countryside pathways, drystone wall maintenance and liaison with the managers and staff of the estates within the park. 

Two of the more interesting roles were patrolling private streams with landowner employed water bailiffs in order to catch poachers - often youths from nearby towns, and working with the Duke of Devonshire’s gamekeepers on the opening of the grouse shooting season. 

Other highlights were addressing the European Heritage Parks Conference on NZ’s national park and reserves system and visiting many other English national parks and protected areas in Scotland.  On completion of this exchange I took leave and our family went on a car a trip through Europe visiting a number of other European parks.  On my return, I wrote a report on the ranger exchange with observations that I thought were relevant to NZ.