Stephen King (conservationist)

King was born in 1952 or 1953 and was the third oldest of 12 children. He grew up in Te Aroha, before the family moved to Northcote, Auckland, in 1960. His father fostered his love of nature from a young age, and as an early teenager he earned himself the nickname "nature boy". After high school, King studied horticulture at Massey University for two years, before dropping out to study at Bible College in Christchurch. Six months later, King was expelled from the college for refusing to wear shoes. King left Christchurch, and walked barefoot to the top of the South Island, crossed the Cook Strait via ferry, and then walked as far as Ōtaki, before hitchhiking the rest of his way back to Auckland. == Conservation work ==

In 1971, the government, led by prime minister Robert Muldoon, proposed to mill significant areas of native beech forests, and replace it with non-native Pinus radiata. King made headlines in 1978, as part of a group of protesters that spent a week staying on a tōtara tree, in protest of the felling of thousand-year old trees in what is now the Pureora Forest Park. On 18 January the protesters started climbing and occupying trees following an anti-logging protest involving a hundred people, and after logging was suspended on 21 January for safety reasons, an indefinite hold was placed on 24 January. A full logging ban was introduced three years later. by 1984 the trust had planted 25,000 native trees in Pureora alone. In October 1990, Prime Minister Mike Moore announced that Pureora would be restored as a native forest. ==Personal life==

King has notably spent the majority of his life barefoot, stating he "loves the feeling of beneath his feet". == Notes ==