Keith Woodley
Keith Woodley has been manager at Pūkorokoro Shorebird Centre on the Firth of Thames since 1993. The centre is owned and operated by the Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists’ Trust (PMNT) Key PMNT objectives include raising public awareness of coastal ecology and advocacy for shorebirds and their habitats. Since 1994 PMNT has been closely involved with the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. The Trust is a partner of the East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership – a network of governments, NGOs and other organisations aimed at protecting migratory waterbirds, their habitats, and the livelihoods of people dependent upon them. Until the New Zealand government joined the partnership in 2011, PMNT remained the sole New Zealand representative.
In 2004 PMNT formed a sister-site partnership with Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve, on the northern Yellow Sea coast of China. The reserve is one of the most important stopover sites used by migratory shorebirds during northward migration to the Arctic tundra, and the single most important site for kuaka bar-tailed godwits from New Zealand.
Keith has taken part in regular shorebird surveys in China, along with school visits and other public awareness activities. In 2006 and 2007 he participated in the Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Project (SSMP). Organised by NGOs Birds Korea and the Australasian Wader Studies Group, the SSMP documented the disastrous effects on shorebirds of a massive land-building scheme on the west coast of South Korea. The project, involving the longest sea wall in the world, effectively destroyed 41,000 ha of intertidal flats and shallows that had supported over 400,000 shorebirds during migration.
In 2014 he was part of a DOC/PMNT delegation to Pyongyang to establish a partnership between PMNT and the Nature Conservation Union of Korea (NCUK). The agreement called for five years of shorebird surveys along the west coast of North Korea. He has now been to North Korea five times.
In September 2013, in recognition of his advocacy work for shorebirds, Keith was one of three inaugural recipients of a Holdaway Award, presented by the Hauraki Gulf Forum. In 2022 he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Shorebird Conservation.