1. Lou Sanson was born circa 1956 in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island.
16 Facts About Lou Sanson
1. 2.
Lou Sanson attended Hokitika Primary School and Westland High School.
3.
Lou Sanson's parents were both teachers at Westland High School: his mother Alison taught art and his father Trevor mathematics.
4.
Lou Sanson's father, who died in 2003, was an engineer who spent a year in the 1960s supervising studies in Antarctica, to which Lou Sanson attributes his early interest in the continent.
5.
Lou Sanson was part of a Westland High School environmental group who in 1971 stopped native forest logging by the New Zealand Forest Service in the Hokitika Gorge.
6.
Lou Sanson's first paid job was for the Forest Service in 1971, at the age of 17, as a track cutter in the Copland Valley, now Westland Tai Poutini National Park.
7.
Lou Sanson then completed a Bachelor of Forestry degree at the University of Canterbury, with a thesis on wilding pine in the Abel Tasman National Park.
8.
Lou Sanson made the first of around 50 trips to Antarctica in 1981, spending five months working as a field assistant.
9.
From 2002 to 2013, Lou Sanson was based in Christchurch as the chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand, a post he admitted he held onto "a little too long", while waiting for the top role at the Department of Conservation to become available.
10.
Lou Sanson assisted with the formation of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Protected Area and the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area, in 2007 took Sir Edmund Hillary on his last visit to Antarctica, and helped set up the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute in 2012.
11.
Lou Sanson arrived at DOC at a time when repeated budget cuts had created an unsafe work culture, culminating in the Cave Creek disaster.
12.
Lou Sanson oversaw the creation of Rakiura National Park and the Sub-Antarctic Islands World Heritage Area, the launch of the Predator Free 2050 strategy, and the rat eradication on Campbell Island.
13.
Lou Sanson was the Crown negotiator for the Ngai Tahu Deed Settlement Act on the Titi Islands and Whenua Hou Settlements.
14.
Lou Sanson planned to volunteer for Predator Free 2050 and the Backcountry Trust.
15.
The expense was criticised by the Taxpayers' Union and Lou Sanson had suggested returning the presents after learning the value and that DOC had paid for them.
16.
Lou Sanson thought they had been bought by staff and ministers.