Posted: 14-Apr-2025
Award-winning and respected journalist and conservationist, Rosalie Smith (QSM) of Katikati has died, just short of her 94th birthday.
In 2021, Rosalie donated the carved New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators Rongo Trophy she won in the 1980s back to the guild. The wooden figure represents Rongo, also known as Rongo-mā-Tāne, the major Māori god of agriculture and cultivated plants, particularly kūmara, and is associated with peace and prosperity
Rosalie won the award in the 1980s for a series of articles she wrote about the kiwifruit industry, following a visit to the markets in Europe as rural reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times.
In 2007 Rosalie was awarded a Queen Service Medal for her services to agricultural journalism and the community.
The same year the Uretara Estuary Managers (UEM) environmental group Rosalie helped to found in 2004 won the Ministry for the Environment’s prestigious Green Ribbon Award which celebrates outstanding contributions by individuals, communities and organisations to protect and manage New Zealand's environment.
Rosalie was appointed patron, along with fellow conservationist Peter Maddison, of Project Parore, a pioneering catchment-wide ecological restoration project which has evolved from UEM.
Initially trained as a teacher, Rosalie became Bay of Plenty Times' Katikati correspondent in 1969. She went on to be the paper’s rural reporter and won awards for her writing, including the Rongo Award.
In 1984 she became the founding editor the NZ Kiwifruit Journal. The same year she helped the avocado industry start its publication, Avoscene, which she edited for seven years. From 1999 onwards, she freelanced, writing for such publications as NZ Herald and The Orchardist.
Rosalie was also a member of and written books for Open Air Art, responsible for Katikati’s murals and an active member of the Katikati Twilight Concert committee.
Her contribution to the kiwifruit industry is also celebrated in the Katikati mural ‘The History of Kiwifruit’ by artist Marc Spijkerbosch.
Words by Elaine Fisher
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