Tūrangi’s Alan Frank Simmons has been acknowledged in the 2026 King’s Birthday honours list.
Simmons has become a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to outdoor recreation.
The citation from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet noted that Simmons had helped create ecotourism opportunities in New Zealand from the 1980s as one of the first professional hunting and fishing guides.
He invested in the education of foreign tourists to encourage visiting New Zealand and was involved in promoting and developing standards for protecting the environment and for professional guiding.
He was a Ministerial appointment to help set up the New Zealand Fish and Game Council in 1990, joining the Council until 2005. He similarly helped set up the Eastern Fish and Game Council and was a member until 2024, chairing the Fish Committee.
He wrote a paper promoting the adoption of a United States program to raise funds for wetland restoration via introduction of a duck stamp, leading to the establishment of the New Zealand Game Bird Habitat Stamp Regulations 1993.
He has served on numerous fishing organisations including the New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council from 1989 to 1995, the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater Anglers since 1999 and the New Zealand Professional Fishing Guides Association.
He participated in the Taupō Sports Fishery Review and has also published four books on hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation between 1987 and 2024.
More broadly, Simmons has been Vice President of the Wairarapa Art Club and Wairarapa Deer Stalkers Association, and a member of the Wellington Arts Council.
In June 2019, Simmons addressed the International Tribunal for Natural Justice’s Commission of Inquiry into the Weaponisation of the Biosphere, saying in the last 50 years he had witnessed a vast change in both the New Zealand way of life as well as the rapid decline in a once relatively pristine ecology and environment.
In this testimony he called for a halt to the aerial dropping of 1080 toxin to control pest species.
