The rare awarding of a King’s Service Medal (KSM) to each of a husband-and-wife duo has brought the 2025 honour to Cambridge’s Tony and Jenny Enderby.
Delighted King’s Service Medal recipients, Jenny and Tony Enderby, with the painted ceramic vase given to them in 2023 by DOC for their many years of work in conservation. Photo: Viv Posselt
Both were awarded the KSM for services to conservation. Their joint citation speaks to them having volunteered for the Department of Conservation from the early 1990s to 2023, during which time they became two of only four honorary warranted officers based in Auckland.
They began as visitor guides for Tiritiri Matangi Island, then volunteered as Maui Dolphin observers, visitor supervisors for Little Barrier Island for more than 10 years and undertook diving surveys off Great Barrier Island. As honorary warranted officers, they intervened and prevented offences such as poaching across New Zealand’s oldest marine reserve, the Crop (Cape Rodney to Okakari Point) Marine Reserve.
“We were responsible for compliance and law enforcement, but a lot of what we did was simply educating people,” Tony said.
Also noted was the work they did in establishing the Leigh Penguin Project in 2018, their decade of volunteer work with the Tāuwharanui Open Sanctuary Society, Forest and Bird Coast Care, Leigh Library, Whangateau Harbour Care, the Leigh Business Group and more.
The Enderbys have travelled and dived extensively, written and taken photographs for about nine books and countless published articles, and in 2005, were presented with the DOC Volunteer of the Year awards.
It’s an impressive resume, and as much as they’re grateful for the recognition, they seem slightly surprised.
Speaking to The News last week, they said they feel lucky to have seen what they have seen and to have had a hand in conserving it.
Tony said: “What I am particularly rapt with is that everything we have done, we have done together, and to get an award for that is fantastic.”
Jenny agreed, adding: “There are so many people who have helped us along the way… we couldn’t have done a lot of it without them.”
The Enderbys have lived here since 2021, making the move from coastal Auckland to the land-locked central North Island, largely for health reasons. And while they feel the absence of the ocean, they are embracing whatever inland volunteering opportunities they can in terms of conservation. They have already joined Predator Free Cambridge, helping with trapping at Lake Te Koo Utu and along the green strip bordering their home, and are volunteering at Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari.
It was understandable that Tony veered towards marine conservation. He remembers his dad being a fan of Jacques Cousteau, and Tony became adept at diving early in life.
A selfie taken by Tony and Jenny Enderby on a dive at Goat Island, where they worked for many years. Photo: supplied
The Auckland couple met when working at the then Suburban Newspapers, with Tony as production manager and Jenny in classifieds. When he was made redundant, he was already diving and taking underwater photographs, with Jenny a superb sidekick. A job at the Rodney Times was a good fit with a move to Leigh, but by the time Tony was again made redundant, the pair had started to establish themselves writing articles and taking photographs for multiple publications.
“We travelled overseas, diving, taking photographs and writing,” Tony said. “We got to publish in about 100 different mastheads in 14 different countries.”
They wrote the Lonely Planet’s Guide to Diving and Snorkelling in New Zealand, dived our coastline, around the Pacific and off Queensland, scoured shipwrecks and vessels scuttled to make artificial reefs. The latter was at the heart of a newspaper article they wrote in mid-2006 marking the 10th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.
They monitored marine life populations, protected penguins, rid islands of the Polynesian rat (which brought the birdsong back), and educated and hassled people taking what they shouldn’t from marine reserves. Tony also became a life member of the Leigh Volunteer Fire Brigade.
For Jenny and Tony, it’s been a lifelong adventure made the more pleasurable through sharing it. Now, it’s time to sit back and bask in a spot of well-earned recognition.
Delighted King’s Service Medal recipients, Jenny and Tony Enderby, with the painted ceramic vase given to them in 2023 by DOC for their many years of work in conservation. Photo: Viv Posselt
