Richard de Hamel
Marine swashbuckler
During a long summer at the family’s Stewart Island bach, a young Richard de Hamel developed a board game based around fishing. Players competed for the fish in a central pool, but had to strike a balance. ‘‘If you took out that many fish, you had to put more in, or the game stops,’’ de Hamel says.
Decades later, sustainable fishing is at the heart of de Hamel’s work as a marine educator.
‘‘New Zealand law [about minimum fish size] demands we take out the breeding-sized fish. We target the breeding fish, then we scratch our heads and say, ‘fishing’s not as good as it used to be, I wonder why that is’?’’
In nature, animals predate on smaller fish, he points out. ‘‘Penguins, do they take breeding fish or small ones? Smaller ones. So too with dolphin, seals, albatross.’’
A small snapper might produce 20,000 eggs, but a large one yields 20 million, de Hamel says.
‘‘So which would you rather have around? If I was prime minister I’d ban fishing competitions where the prize is for the biggest fish; the big fish are important in the ocean, not on some trophy wall.’’
It’s late summer when we meet at de Hamel’s home in Wakefield, south of Nelson.
Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, he’s about to head into the hills behind Takaka, to lay out Vespex poison on his cousin’s land. It’s been a bumper year for wasps in the top of the south, and volunteers are working overtime to curb their impact.
‘‘This time of year you get out of the car, and you just hear hmmm.’’
De Hamel has covered a lot of ground lately: it’s school camp season, and he’s been travelling around the top of the south, running workshops for schoolchildren, fanning a spark he believes is only ignited by experience.
‘‘When you . . . look back at the things that shaped your opinions and your life, the way you look at the world, you can probably think of a few experiences that are key in your life. Did any of those experiences happen at school? I would almost guarantee they didn’t.’’
Outside the 1900 villa, Maverick the dog snoozes in the shade of a wrap-around veranda hung with grapevines and climbing roses.
The rambling family home was in a poor state when de Hamel and his wife bought it in 1990. Three decades, a lot of restoration and four children later, the home is cosy and lived in, cluttered with curios and with a strong nautical theme: model ships, boat paraphernalia and a toilet decked out like the bridge of a ship.
When it’s not possible to take children into the natural world, de Hamel brings experience into the classroom. When we learn this sometimes entails dressing as a pirate, our photographer asks him to don his gear for a photo.
With a good-natured sigh, the scientist climbs the creaking ladder into his attic to dig out his pirate clobber and antiquated musket.
Smaller children look past the synthetic wig and anachronistic buttons on the coat de Hamel had made in Vietnam and see a buccaneer with a treasure chest who has lost his ship. ‘‘I’m plausible. Unlikely, but plausible. If you’re 5 or 6 you can suspend what you know to be possible and accept that, somehow, it’s worked.’’
It’s not easy for teachers to find a space for the logic and factual nature of science in the hubbub of the classroom, de Hamel says.
‘‘Children today are not well versed in science. I’m not surprised. Science teaches you to be logical, factual, reproducible, precise. A classroom is the opposite, it’s chaos and reality.’’
De Hamel has always loved the sea. As a youngster, growing up in Dunedin, he bought a sailboat with his grandmother’s inheritance and began racing, beating his contemporary Russell Coutts once or twice, he says.
After studying zoology at the University of Otago, he worked for the Wildlife Service and the Department of Conservation, shifting around the South Island for work and study before settling in Wakefield for good.
In 2000, he helped Murray Goss establish the Mapua Aquarium, teaching children about the marine world and their place in it.
‘‘I want people to look at the ocean and feel part of it. We see the ocean as being out there, and that it just ticks on, and I’m outside it. It’s absolutely not true. Humans are the biggest ocean predator by far.’’
The aquarium also provided de Hamel with an opportunity for some learning of his own: a site to try out his collection of matau (Ma¯ ori fish hooks).
The hooks, carved from bone and wood, are simply designed but very clever, he says. ‘‘But
I wasn’t sure how they worked; as a scientist what do you do? Experiment.’’
Left in sole charge while Goss was away one weekend, de Hamel went fishing, hooking his boss’ favourite: a whopper blue cod named Blue.
The experiment worked, Blue was unharmed and de Hamel was satisfied: Ma¯ ori fishing technology has become one of his favourite workshops to run.
‘‘The Ma¯ ori have it sussed. The hooks don’t penetrate the skin of the mouth, or cause trauma to the fish, and you can return them unharmed.’’
De Hamel’s time at the aquarium ended in 2011 when the aquarium was destroyed by an arsonist. Hundreds of sea creatures perished in the blaze, a tragic end to a job he had loved, he says. ‘‘When it burned down I thought, that’s the end of that job, it was nice while it lasted. [But] everyone said, look, if you reckon you can keep going, you should.’’
So de Hamel rejigged the way he worked, taking up his current role with Otago University’s New Zealand Marine Studies Centre, taking his workshops far and wide across the top of the South Island.
At last week’s camp, children toured the Marlborough Sounds on the educational yacht the Steadfast. ‘‘It’s a voyage of discovery: they look at birds, seals, plankton; they navigate, and they steer the boat. That sort of stuff creates a memorable experience kids can remember the rest of their life.
‘‘If a school is there to provide forwardthinking, well-rounded children, who have an understanding of the world, an important role of school should be experiences. Not just one camp a year.’’
‘‘I want people to look at the ocean and feel part of it.’’