Keeping New Zealand Green reflects Elizabeth's determination to present a balanced history of the New Zealand Forest Service, whose contribution towards preserving our native forests has, she contends, been seriously misunderstood.
But Elizabeth is the daughter of Pat Entrican, Director of Forestry 1939–1961, a controversial figure usually associated with the great Kaingaroa forest and the pulp and paper enterprise created to utilise its pines. Elizabeth also tells stories about the Kawerau mills, the biggest industrial plant built in New Zealand up to that time.
So did Entrican and his fellow directors really care about the fate of our indigenous forests? Keeping New Zealand Green presents the evidence for a new assessment of the Forest Service, and makes a plea for the action now needed to preserve our fauna and its habitats from threatened extinction.
Elizabeth Orr is best known for her part in the passing of the 1972 Equal Pay Act, and as the first woman chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington. In the Te Horo district south of Otaki her reputation is quite different; she is the woman who, with the help of her stonemason labourer husband Gordon Orr, built stone walls around the totara/matai/titoki stands on their property. Elizabeth is also the daughter of Pat Entrican, Director of Forestry from 1939 to 1961 and this book reflects Elizabeth's determination to tell the history of the New Zealand Forest Service, and restore it to it's rightful place in the story of New Zealand.