Juxtaposition: On the edge in Hauraki

On the day that the World Meteorological Organisation reports that 2024 was likely the first calendar year to average more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era, the answers to addressing climate change are still simple and staring us in the face: cut our use of fossil fuels, grow food locally and with minimal imported ingredients, and – in many places – restore natural, complex, balanced ecosystems. I don’t like the term ‘nature-based solutions’ – nature IS the solution.

On the past weekend, I was fortunate – and disturbed – to witness two contrasting ‘ecosystems’ play out side-by-side. I was on the Hauraki Plains on Sunday, not at the summit this time, but at ‘Ground Zero’: on the boundary between a vast, unassuming ecosystem and our modern over-the-top industrialised agriculture. Just off State Highway 26, with cars speeding along at 100 km/hr between Morrinsville and Auckland, a short gravelled road diverted me to a stream skirting round New Zealand’s largest remaining unaltered raised peat bog. Kopuatai Peat Dome is 10,201 hectares in area, lies between the Piako and Waihou Rivers 70 km northeast of Hamilton, and is rising by about a millimetre a year.

Through a sign-posted gate reading ‘please close the gate’, I went to the end of the road, parked the car, then on foot skirted around the stream, watching and taking photos of what looked like low-growing scrub with a few small kahikatea growing out. It was a tranquil time, almost sacred, as I watched debris drift silently down the stream.

Later, I read how this peat bog has been slowly, silently, and effortlessly absorbing CO2 for thousands of years; its lowlying ecosystem sustaining a huge variety of low-life plants and insects. According to the Department of Conservation, it is also home to 54 species of birds (27 protected, 17 unprotected and 10 game birds), and important fish species such as the black mudfish and the endemic long finned eels.

A 2022 article in the Forest & Bird magazine explores the value of the peat dome largely through the eyes of Waikato University wetland expert Dr Dave Campbell.

Peat bogs form in low-nutrient, water-logged areas where dead vegetation only partially breaks down due to an absence of oxygen and microbes. Semi-decomposed plant matter accumulates slowly but steadily – and is exceedingly rich in carbon. Such that Kopuatai holds 2400 tonnes of carbon per hectare, compared to a mature pine forest’s 300 tonnes. However, a pine forest is destined to be cut and milled, releasing CO2 again. Kopuatai has been accumulating carbon over thousands of years, and will continue to do so, undisturbed, in “a constant state of slow but steady carbon uptake”.

Even natural forests, when they reach an old-growth stage, will either burn (releasing carbon) or their uptake of carbon will simply level out.

The article notes that 75% of Waikato’s wetland areas – and 90% of wetlands across Aotearoa – have been drained and converted to farmland, introducing oxygen back into the soil, and turning these highly efficient carbon sinks back into major carbon sources. Dave’s research indicates that a single hectare of drained peatland will emit up to 30 tonnes of CO2 per year.

***

Meanwhile back on the ranch …. my tranquil Sunday observations of the peat dome were about to be disturbed as I heard distant murmurings of machinery. Down the farm track I’d just walked along, came the convoy: a mammoth combine harvester followed by four wagon-pulling tractors, to gather up the cuttings from the harvester as it chewed up a field of maize. It reminded me of Philip Reeve’s “Mortal Engines” book series, where huge mobile cities crawl around gobbling up smaller towns – including their human populations – to provide resources and labour for ongoing growth. The books are a metaphor for our globalised capitalist system of gobbling up resources, to benefit the wealthy and comfortable.

I don’t know how much energy and resources from ‘elsewhere’ was poured into this five vehicles, nor how many external inputs went into the maize field; nor how many cows – or stock units – would be fed by the maize sileage produced, nor how much of that milk (or meat) will be consumed locally, and how much exported. There may be a positive credit in the farmers’ and industrialists’ bank books, but there will be no carbon credits for the Earth, only deficits. Making cents in someone’s economic analysis, but not much ‘sense’ ecologically.

But wait – there’s more! Resilience to drought

Dave Campbell’s research has also shown the remarkable resilience of the bog to drought. By rights, the bog shouldn’t even be here in such a relatively warm place as the Hauraki plains. From the F&B article:

“Northland and Waikato are the antithesis of the parts of the world where you’d expect to accumulate deep peatlands, because this is a warm, seasonally dry climate,” says Dave. “They simply should not exist.”

The plants hold the key.

“Wetland plants like Empodisma robustum – jointed wire rush – have particular adaptations that enable them to hold onto the water they get from rainfall. This indicates they are equipped to withstand the effect of seasonal droughts.

“The big lesson we’ve learned is how resilient these particular peatlands are to a fluctuating climate. That is globally unique, and it gives us hope that they’ll be very resilient to climate change.”

Wetlands such as Kopuatai also act as filters to provide clean, fresh water. Dave advocates wetland restoration for its multiple benefits: “It’s about water quality, biodiversity, and it’s a major carbon sink that is perhaps more resilient than standard pine forests.”

 *

More photos from the peat dome below – and nearby Morrinsville. “Power farming” and the modern equivalent of the ‘golden calf’? Very fitting, I felt.

"Everyone must go": Aussies to NZ - Yeah, right

This is a rant – a knee-jerk gut reaction to hearing the New Zealand government’s latest campaign to boost economic growth via tourism. For a modest $500,000, we are trying to get more Aussies to visit our precious land, on a campaign slogan of ‘Everyone must go’.  

It sounds like something that the current United States leader would use to describe his new policy of mass deportations of illegal immigrants, or – closer to home, and to the bone – Australia’s ‘section 501’ deportations of non-citizens who don’t live up to their character test: half of them being New Zealanders.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against Aussie visitors, just angry about how blinkered vision can see increased tourism and more overseas dollars as (part of) the answer for our economic problems. Our worst economic problems are inequality and lack of access to the basics for so many, on both sides of the Tasman Divide. It is not about increasing the size of the pie.

In a world wracked by climate change and economic disparity - globally and in each of these countries, more tourism is not the way to go. We still haven’t learnt our lessons from the COVID pandemic – that a disease spread by invisible viruses could impact almost the entire human population so quickly through air travel, and hit the poor the hardest.

In the rush to get more Aussies over here with a dodgy tag line, we may get more than we bargained for, as alluded to in this brilliant take-off of an earlier New Zealand tourism campaign (100% Pure), in one of two mock ad pitches for an invasion of New Zealand by Australia. Here’s “The New Zealand Invasion (100% There for taking)” (again).

Island Time - Musings from Matiu

As summer finally arrives in Wellington for our Provincial Anniversary Weekend, I decided to share some musings from a stint on Matiu - the island sanctuary in the middle of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour) in winter 2023. It was a blissful four days, even though I was ‘working’ as a volunteer ranger for the Department of Conservation (DoC) at the time. The opportunity arose through my 21 years’ service as a volunteer for Eastbourne Forest Rangers - a role which is sadly coming to an end as DoC does away with in-person bio-security checks on the island.

I catch the 10.20 Eastbourne bus to get there. As we head round the bays, misty rain ahead of us, I see a rainbow reaching down to the water: it could be touching Matiu, which is hidden by the rain curtain.

From Days Bay wharf, I will hop onto the Ika Rere, the large, sleek new electric ferry, but bump into one of the DoC rangers at the Pavilion beforehand. She has just got married, and when not on the island, lives with her husband near Ohakea!

On the wharf, a plumber waits with a new stove and oven for the campsite kitchen on the island.

As we’re about to board, the Iwi DoC Ranger also joins us. Her job is to help foster iwi reconnection with the island, which owned by Taranaki Whānui, governed by the Harbour Islands Kaitiaki Board and managed on a day-to-day basis by DoC.

So, for the journey over on this grey wintry day, there’s me, two rangers and the plumber. On the way over, the stove falls onto its side in the turbulent waves, right above my head.

There is a rainbow over the harbour again, reaching the island in the mist as we draw close.

*

After biosecurity checks for us all - self-checking the bags, it’s into the golf-cart: a mini electric vehicle, with the two rangers. I am delivered right to the door.

I offload my gear into my unit, then report for duty at the Field Centre, where the DoC office is. There, I manage to find, among a haphazard concoction of clothing, some winter, fleecy trackpants and a shirt that fits. Then it’s back down to the wharf and the whare manuhiri by 12.25 to welcome a mana whenua group associated with Taranaki Whānui.

As we converse, I find out one of the young leaders lives in my street back in Moera! She is here with a cohort of young people who have dropped out of school - her words. They are staying at Education House, one of the 2-3 houses available for people to book overnight accommodation.

After I’ve done biosecurity with them, I come outside and there is a bright clear rainbow. It gradually moves up the coast northwards from Eastbourne splashing all the houses along the way in glorious rainbow colours. It is awesome, it is incredible, and rainbows stay around the harbour for the rest of the afternoon, it seems. I am reminded of a time, long before, when I looked out from Wellington City to the island, and saw a rainbow touch the island. It seemed like a sign, a blessing, a promise.

 *

Island time here is set and kept by the rhythm of the ferries: over the next four days, I am required to welcome, or be available to welcome, any visitors who arrive on ferries at 10.25, 11.05, 12.25 and 1.15. That is all, that is the minimum. The only thing that came ashore on the 1.15 was a large piece of white plastic pipe that the plumber left behind! While waiting for the ferry, I meet up with Jill and David, whom I last encountered doing a Karobusters weekend last year. Karobusters scour the island, off the beaten track, to remove pest species - including of course ‘karo’ - native to New Zealand, but not to this area.

Turns out it was the one and only Karobusters weekend any of us have done! They found it hard. I said I hadn’t had the time to go back to it, yet.

*

At 2.30pm, after lunch, I am sitting on the seat outside the middle ‘motel unit’ where I am staying. These three 1-bedroom units were built round 1970 for vets and other technical staff visiting the animal quarantine station that ran on the island til 1995.

The sun is shining, it it calm, it is quiet. I hear the breeze in the trees. I hear birds chirping in different locations, high small birds. I do not know if they are native or introduced.

I hear the sound of the Eastbourne fire siren, and wonder: emergency? or false alarm? The wind stirs the trees more noisily. My pen writes silently - erratically, but stubbornly in the hand of the one who holds it - across the page.

The sun shines through a small grove of pohutukawa and macrocarpa.

A very light, misty film of rain drifts across, just beyond and above the shelter of the porch. I am facing northwest, but if I twist my body and head slightly to the left, I see Wellington, with a big black container ship and smaller white ferry sitting out in front of the city.

On the hills is thick, misty cloud. It reminds me of the cover of the book Big Weather - Poems of Wellington, which has such a scene on the cover, only more foreboding.

A light misty rain falls again. There must be a name for this type of rain - the type that is almost not there - but I do not know it. It’s a type you can hardly feel, but you can see the tiny delicate drops fall slowly to the ground, or blown sideways by the wind, as the sunlight catches the drops.

As I walk around the island about 4pm, after cleaning out the whare, the rainbow continues along the Eastbourne coast. At one point, the two ends, from the Seaview wharf to Burdan’s Gate south of Eastbourne, are completely joined at the top. It is complete. 

 

  

Breaking in the New Year - a climb up Te Aroha

My New Year's treat to myself (my wife would hardly call it that) was to climb up Mt Te Aroha, the highest peak (952 metres) in the Kaimai Range which dominates the Hauraki Plains, topped further by a 125 metre TV transmitter tower. For me it was a return 'home' overlooking the Plains which shaped my psyche in my first five years - and later two years in Paeroa.

Some photos of the walk, the view and surrounding Te Aroha township are below, but once again, just scratching a little under the surface of dominant (European Pākehā) history, we find ‘the truth’ is not always what’s displayed publicly.

At the base of the mountain, in the township of Te Aroha, lies the thermal springs and spa, a depleted geyser, and beautiful looking Edwardian-style gardens and buildings.

Despite public plaques and the Te Aroha Museum saying the springs on the slopes of the mountain were ‘generously gifted’ by Rangatira Te Mokena Hou, a summary of findings by the Waitangi Tribunal in the Hauraki report notes the following (page xl of the Executive Summary):

Despite some oral traditions to the contrary, the Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu rangatira Te Mokena Hou and his whanau did not, in legal terms, ‘give’ to the Crown the hot springs reserve in section 16 of the Te Aroha purchase (while retaining sections 15 and 17 where the township was built). Rather, Crown control of the springs was asserted through the Te Aroha purchase, the proclamation of the Te Aroha goldfield in 1880, and the Public Domains Act 1881, under which the reserve was gazetted. We accept therefore that another Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu oral tradition that the springs were ‘taken’ by the Crown has some validity. In general, we find that the Crown has failed to protect the traditional values and kaitiakitanga of the tribe in Te Aroha mountain and hot springs. [further details in the report]

Regarding the naming of the mountain, in Te Arawa tradition, their ancestor Kahumatamomoe after traveling to Te Tai Tokerau and back again (naming many places along the way), “Before returning to Rotorua, he climbed the highest point on the Kaimai Range, naming it Te Muri-aroha-o-Kahu, te aroha-tai, te aroha-uta (the love of Kahu for those on the coasts and those on the land) for his relatives living inland at Rotorua and Taupō, and those near the sea in the far north and the Coromandel.” (see (‘Te Arawa Stories’)

However, the Te Ara – Encyclopaedia of New Zealand website notes that in the tradition of another iwi (Tainui), it was named Te Aroha-o-Kahu by the Tainui ancestress Kahupekapeka, who climbed the mountain after the death of her husband.

There are more and deeper stories to be told about ‘Te Aroha’, and it’s meaning and significance to Māori, on both sides of the Kaimai divide.

 

 

And the town clock still chimes the hours and every quarter hour. Listen in the video below.

 

Learning to be New Zealanders – from Egmont to Taranaki

Looking forward to John Campbell's series "From Egmont to Taranaki" which launches on TVNZ tomorrow according to an Radio NZ interview (though seems to be online here already). I have only glanced at it so far, but will be interesting to listen and compare notes with John, as someone of similar age who has been gradually coming to terms with the ongoing process of 'becoming a New Zealander"*, partly through this blog series.

John learns about Aotearoa largely through the lens of Taranaki – not a bad place to start, or finish for that matter. But I feel a bit more of a personal connection with Taranaki, where my father started working in the dairy industry after immigrating from the Netherlands in 1954, and where I worked for a couple of years in the 1990s. Both of us receiving huge insights into 'different lands' for us, and both of us – I realised after I left – benefitting indirectly from the land confiscations that John covers in his podcast.

But I'm reminded of three little memories from Taranaki – insights into racism, prejudice and preferences from the 1990s, but I'm sure much of it still runs deep.

The first was in a conversation with my boss, when I quite naturally referred to the mountain as 'Taranaki' (even though I had grown up referring to it as Mt Egmont – geographical nomenclature had started to shift – and so had I). My boss, an older guy not originally from the area, said quite simply and matter of factly, something along the lines of "I have to say, it's always going to be Mt Egmont for me." No defensiveness, no anger, no big deal. We each had our preferred name, and agree to disagree.

The second incident surprised me. The young female head of the District Information Office, recently back from studies or a job outside the district, said something along the lines that she felt Māori around the place these days looked a lot more bolshie than they used to. I wish I could remember the precise word – but at present, bolshie or assertive comes closest. I said nothing.

The most jarring comment however, came from a well-respected Pākehā Councillor, who up until that time, seemed to me the most decent and upright person on the Council. A young engineer from Tauranga had earlier described him as having a lot of 'mana' in the area he lived and served in. That comment struck me then – it was probably the first time I'd heard a Māori concept like that applied in general conversation. So, it was even more jarring, when this same Councillor, as a car-load of us headed back from a Council meeting in Patea, should say to us all: 'You know, they say there are only 9  honest Māori in Patea – and they'll all sitting in that canoe there' – pointing to the stone canoe that sits atop the entrance to Memorial Park in Patea (and made famous with the video of the song "Poi E"). I was shocked, saddened and surprised at who had said it, but I also said nothing myself.

However, I was also fortunate in my time with the Council to be witness to a significant meeting between Council representatives and mana whenua over Turuturu Mokai, a four-century old pa site, that had been neglected and abused, with a Council dump once being located within the site. (Eventually the pa gained recognition as a wahi tapu (sacred site) in 2016 – but I understand much still needs to be done to rehabilitate and fully recognise it.)

I am looking forward to what John and his friends have to tell me, tell us, of their journey – our journey. 

 

* a term which initially referred only to the Indigenous occupants of Aotearoa.

Over COVID? Yeah, right

So, two years and nine months after COVID hit the international headlines, the Ministry of Health winds up its regular media briefings, we shift to weekly reporting of case numbers, and things move to a ‘new normal’ with dropping of face mask requirements and an end to government vaccine mandates on 26 September.
But on the same day as the Ministry’s ‘final briefing’, someone in our household of three people tests positive. After keeping COVID-19 at bay all those months - being super-cautious because of a particularly vulnerable person in our household - we get COVID. Life isn’t fair, they say.
I think we’d actually had the bug about a week. I can’t help thinking that it entered household shortly after the mask requirement in public transport and shops was dropped. Circumstantial evidence only I know - it doesn’t wash.
And disturbingly among the stats released by the government regarding differing levels of protection in the ‘new freedom’:  only 56 per cent of eligible Maori aged over 18 and 61 per cent of eligible pacific people aged over 18 have received a first booster. This compares with 73 per cent of all eligible people aged over 18.
Though COVID cases and deaths are declining, fortunately, there were still 36 deaths of people with COVID in the week to 18 September.
The extreme COVID protection measures in the early days - the rahui/lockdowns and household isolation did wonders to pull down flu rates and other communicable diseases as well, and showed how nature can recover quickly when given the chance. Not that they could be continued forever - but it was telling us something.
What lessons have we learnt? None of us live for ever, but how do we best protect the lives we have, and who decides how much effort - and inconvenience - we put into protecting the most vulnerable, and those without a loud voice - whether they be human lives or otherwise?

What crisis are we in right now?

Checking the NZ Doctor COVID timeline, I see that at this time two years ago, New Zealand was recording one new confirmed case a day of COVID from 4-7 March 2020, bringing the total to five at the time. On 11 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared the emergency a pandemic; and President Trump suspended travel into the United States from most European countries for 30 days.

But today, in our time, our family tentatively ventured into Wellington (after the protests), to a Festival of the Arts event at Te Papa, masked and with vaccine passes at the ready, on a ‘mission to Mars’. Guess we wanted to escape it all, Earth becoming a bit too hot to handle, these days.

But it reminded me that two years ago, a bit later into March, we had ventured into Wellington for a Festival event – only to find it cancelled in that strange, topsy-turvy time before COVID really hit New Zealand, when events were being cancelled voluntarily by organisers all over the place. On that day, with no show to go to, we took ourselves off to Arty Bees second-hand bookshop, and I bought a copy of James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency (a much delayed read).

First published in 2005, it explores the potential impacts (especially for America), of the consequences of converging crises, such as peak oil production, climate change, disease (yes, including pandemics), economic instability and – dare I say it – war. A rather sombre prophetic book perhaps, but I note the subtitle is Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (my emphasis). The author is only trying to help.

And I hate to say, I haven’t read it yet. I’m just trying to navigate the present complex crisis we’re in, while keeping an eye on the horizon; and trying to keep some personal crises at bay as well. 

If I survive reading James Kunstler, I’ll let you know