Rats! - the mower is back

I heard the tractor mower across the river at the golf course today: first day of freedom under ‘essential turf maintenance’ that golf courses and other significant sports grounds were allowed to undertake in a new extension of ‘essential services’ allowed under Level 4 Covid19 restrictions.

I was somewhat disappointed. The low hum of the tractor across the way is not disturbing, but it’s just a sign, a starter, an indicator of the resumption of normal activities - and noise - we can expect to see as the machinery of modern life gets underway again. I do not wish to see a return to our so-called ‘normality’ - at least, not the normality we had become accustomed to before the pandemic: the noise, the business, the increasing intensification of life.

This same morning, I had also read an excellent and challenging article by Julio Vincent Gambuto, "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting". It warns of the onslaught from business, advertising and government which will urge us to spend our way back to ‘normal’. OK, he’s writing about the States, but similar aspects will apply here - that normal is seen to be a busy, productive economy producing ‘things’ that may not be necessary, or exploit people or the earth, or are only available to those who can afford it.

(How essential for life are golf courses by the way? Could they be better turned over into urban farms, or small native bush enclosures?) Don’t worry - I’m not going to get out there and start ploughing up golf courses, just wished to point out they are artificial ecosystems, whose concept has come from a foreign land, imposed on natural soils and ‘maintained’ in that artificiality through the constant intervention of people, machines and chemicals (yes - and much modern farming is the same). “This ’aint normal” - to borrow a phrase from the book of the same name  from another American commentator ‘farmer philosopher’ Joel Salatin, who is already carving out a new normal for a post-COVID19 United States.

Meanwhile, Gambuto, whom I read this morning advises:
take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to … only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud.

Back to Aotearoa, on my side of the river, we have a riverbank ecosystem which has been restored over the last decade through plantings of harakeke (flax), taupata, ti kouka (cabbage tree), toi-toi, etc - though blackberry, gorse, broom and lupins are also finding a footing. And native skinks are competing for rats for life.

So - you want to go back to the rat race again after all this?

Venturing out - life under COVID

Week Two under our COVID19 rahui (I prefer that to the inaccurate 'lockdown' - when we are free to stroll out locally and make shopping expeditions for 'essential' supplies). We ventured out to the shops today for the first time. It was our local Super Value, a smaller supermarket, limited to 10 customers at a time. But no queues at 3pm when I ventured in (compared to the lines all along the entire frontage of each of the larger Pak n Save and Countdowns I checked out. Unnerving and eerie to see checkout operators with masks on.

I know the impacts of this reaction to COVID19 are hitting unevenly, I know those families who are already under strain will feel it more, and I know there is expected to be a rise in domestic violence. But, in light of a world facing the long-term, intertwined challenges of climate change and ecosystem destruction, the impact of some of the human measures taken in response show what can happen when there are fewer cars, fewer planes, and more people experiencing, noticing and enjoying their local neighbourhood. Families are spending more time together, and having to come up with creative and enjoyable ways of doing that; as well as relating in innovative ways with their neighbours from a distance; and there are neighbours finding out for the first time who may be lonely or vulnerable ones n their midst.

People are finding out that life is not about rushing, and filling every available space and time in their lives. Globally, in many places, air pollution, traffic congestion, noise and energy consumption is down. And I've just heard while typing this that New Zealand weekday energy use is down 15 percent, and a potential electricity shortage this winter has been averted - thanks to that lower electricity demand.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said we are in 'uncharted territory' when he announced the government's initial business support package on 25 March. But is there possibly a cloud with a silver lining on the horizon? 


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Marking the Hutt - past, present and future

This red-topped post on the Hutt River near Hutt City Centre is a graphic indicator to the changing course of human history - and the Hutt River - past, present and future.

The red line shows the gap in height between the present stopbank, and a proposed new one. Comfortingly, perhaps, the highest flood ever recorded is well below the height of even today’s bank. The marker for the biggest flood I’ve experienced in my 17 years here is even further below. Mind you, that storm was still enough to flood large parts of Waiwhetu, Seaview and Moera - due in part to an overloaded Waiwhetu stream further down the valley. It has since been ‘renovated’, and is now less of a threat.

However, what I find most interesting is that the marker for the 1858 and 1898 floods (equivalent heights) shows how quickly and easily human modification of the landscape can dramatically change things - and cost human lives. John Easther, in a history of the Hutt River written for the Wellington Regional Council, said within two years of European settlers arriving in the Hutt Valley in 1840, ‘stripping of the forest had allowed the Hutt to erode the land and change course as never before’.  In January 1858, the worst of a series of floods that affected the valley caused nine deaths and took out many bridges and roads, as the sign next to the riverbank marker testifies.

The Māori name for the river is Te Awa Kairangi - ‘the river of great value’, reflecting a different relationship with the river. It’s now more commonly used by others too.

 Reassuring as today’s marker and plans to raise the stopbank higher are, I
do wonder what impact climate change - whether 20, 50 or 100 years from now - will have on the level of safety offered. Land and people will be dealing with the double complexity of higher mean sea levels and more intense rain events. Perhaps the slow reforestation of the hills and better urban land and water management will also help - slowing down storm run-off and doing their bit to minimise, or soak up, carbon emissions. Only time will tell.

Poem - In flood
Its banks full
The river is a quiet fury
It must flow to the sea.
There is no argument.