Fifteen years ago Jan and Roy Johnstone obtained resource consent to collect up to a thousand koura or freshwater crayfish from local ditches as starter stock and put them into ten swampy ponds on their property in South Otago’s Puerua Valley.
The koura, that are found in waterways throughout the South Island, can weigh up to 250 grammes and although it hasn’t been the commercial success Jan and Ray were hoping for, they do get to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
Roy is a retired geothermal scientist who has lived and worked in several countries. “My last job was working on a goldmine in Papua New Guinea which had a geothermal system associated with it, so not only were we exploiting the geothermal system to make electricity, but we were cooling it down so we could mine.”
Roy Johnstone worked as a Geothermal Scientist - Project Manager with Lihir Gold Limited from 2005-2008 and Senior Geothermal Scientist at Parsons Brinckerhoff NZ from 1993-2008.
