Regenerative Environmental Pioneer
[Applause]
people come and go
but only the land shall remain
the irony of that whakatauki is that due
to soil erosion
we’re losing the land even faster than
the people
i was asked recently what would the
mountain say if the mountain could speak
i paused for a moment and i thought what
would she say
i think she’d tell us to piss off i
think she would say
i’ve lived through ice ages i’ve had
dinosaurs roam across the puku of my
whenua
i’ve seen fires and i’ve seen floods and
i’ve seen droughts
and yes i have seen tsunamis
but i have never ever in my entire
existence
seen anything as willfully destructive
as you lot
you people so henceforth be gone
you vile creatures back to the place
from whence you came
but first of all pick up your rubbish
your plastic and your pesticides your
rats and your cats
your insects and your weeds muster lids
and possums
and i will once again regenerate the
body of my whenua
using my plants and insects lizards and
birds
to recreate the vast forests the forests
that once protected my rivers
so that fresh water can again flow to
the oceans
the oceans they sustain all of us
the truth is the mountain can talk and
has been talking
but we’ve been so consumed by the
minutiae of our everyday lives
that we fail to take notice that
us until covert 19 stopped us in our
tracks
then all of a sudden all around the
world people paused
started to observe the natural
environment around them
it was as if out of clean air
or at least non-polluted here we could
see mountainsides
on the horizon there were stars visible
in the skies
and there were birds in our backyards
they could sing
like they’re just falling from the sky
like mana from heaven
waiting for a pause in the traffic and
the pollution
to suddenly reappear in our lives fact
is they were there the whole time
we had just failed to take notice
87 percent of our population live in
urban areas
yet they are almost completely
disconnected from the natural
environment
clover 19 has shown us and the world
that we can change our behavior when we
want to but that generally we choose not
to
doing nothing is no longer acceptable
the environment deserves the same
intensive care that we have shown in our
response to covert 19.
the status quo is totally unacceptable
as president roosevelt said our
generation
is on a rendezvous with destiny
it is up to us in this moment in time
both individually and collectively to
make long-term sustainable change
for the environment and the economy
and it is the environment before the
economy we can no longer afford to pay
lip service to the environment
avatar or new zealand an isolated island
in the southwest pacific ocean
with a vibrant outward-looking
indigenous culture
if we cannot lead the way then who else
will
now you’re probably wondering who the
heck is this panifero pakiha
to have the temerity to talk to us about
the environment
well i’m a farmer and i live and i
breathe in the outside
environment day in day out rain
hail sunshine flood drought
i rely upon her to produce the healthy
natural food
that you take for granted if i cannot
produce food
you don’t eat we need to care for her
like our mother and our grandmothers
nurture her like our daughters
and our granddaughters
now i’m going to back it up here and
give you an idea of how
and why i’ve turned out to be the way i
am
people arrived here in the early 1840s
1842 duchess of fargo to be precise
that escaped the highland clearances and
ironically
the cholera epidemic they arrived with
very little apart from the family
like all early settlers were entirely
dependent
upon the kindness the good will
and the protection of iwi maori
they learned to speak the language and
the customs
and formed long and enduring
relationships
so much so that by the 1850s the
teenagers
the boys were deemed old enough to be
able to travel on horseback over a
thousand kilometres right across the
island in order to buy cattle for the
auckland market
now this could have only been achieved
with the goodwill
generosity kindness and protection of
iwi maori
and in fact we have a saying in our
family not a mere
it was only because of the kindness
the good will and protection of very
maori that the mural whanau are still
here today
and we’re still farming the same land
next to the same whanau that we met
those many many generations ago under
the korowai of waikato
the changes that these old people were
seeing on the land and its
people had a profound effect upon them
even more so
after land wars of the 1860s and the
subsequent
confiscations
i was extremely privileged growing up
around many many elders
both maori and pakiha and it was from
them that i gained knowledge of what
life had been like
for the many generations before our time
they had grown up in an age of using a
horse and plowed to seeing people
landing on the moon
it was almost as if as we improved in
our technological well-being
our relationship to the land and the
environment
deteriorated at an almost equivalent
rate became survival
in the economy first
the stream at the back of our farm
pre-1860 was like state highway one for
for taiwanese maori tens of thousands of
tons of produce
from the flour mills their flax mills
the orchards in the market gardens would
pass through there on the way
to supply auckland and the sydney
markets even as far as the californian
gold rushes
the elders used to talk to me about the
abundance
of our forests our rivers
our lakes and oceans in fact they used
to catch
so much white bait they would use the
surplus as fertilizer for their garden
which i know in today’s reality is a
complete sacrilege but that’s
what the times were my reality did not
reflect this
now we jump to the present day
now our total new zealand is becoming
world famous
in terms of irreversible soil erosion
scientists from japan britain france
and america are studying the east cape
of new zealand to thai rafiti
it is estimated that in one catchment
alone 35 million
tons of silt is being eroded down our
rivers and out to sea
every year it’s already raised the river
by up to 20 meters that’s kakite fenuwa
not even kakita no there is no ano there
is no again
once it is gone it is gone
so what to do i could see
what had happened in my area and i
wasn’t willing to wait
for another generation to fix the
problems of the past
the accumulative effect of what was
happening back here in the east cape
was like a massive oil slip coming down
our rivers into our oceans
but the difference being is that when
there’s an oil slick our nation goes
into overdrive to fix it
when the soil erosion in the back blocks
no one apart from the locals
who rely upon the land the river and the
sea
no one gives a damn here’s an analogy
you might be able to relate to
say you’ve been out on the lawn having a
few wines you go home but you’ve
forgotten to take in the blanket
you come back a couple of days later
you’re fully recovered
you pick up the blanket and holy heck
what is this
everything is dead all of the plants
and all of the organisms that rely upon
that have been starved of life
the same thing is happening to our
rivers and our oceans
too much sediment no light no plant life
no fish near series no power
crayfish nothing just barren rocks
so what to do like i said i could see
what had happened in my
area and i was not willing or prepared
to wait for another generation to fix
that problem
i decided to start in my own backyard
a once vibrant stream
that had been the lifeblood tetanui
maori was now
a stagnant fettered swamp choked
by willows and invasive plants
i decided to do my own regeneration in
my own backyard
now gandhi said four phases to starting
a pioneering movement
first they ignore you it’s fine with
that i’m a farmer i just want to get
stuck in and get the job done with no
undue attention
secondly they laugh at you
by the time they realize that i’m
laughing at them laughing at me we get
to the third phase
and that’s where they want to fight you
everything in the animal kingdom knows
not to provoke or antagonize a brightly
coloured object
a red-headed farmer in the middle of the
swamp with the chainsaws by
no means an exception
then after that they want to join join
you and that’s
where you get the ripple effect
by now it was obvious in a major
transformation had taken place
the plants and the weeds that were
blocking the river had gone
the river was flowing again
the natural flora and fauna was
reviving people could see
that it was no longer pointless
worthless or impossible it resonated
with them
and their way of life and their
connection to the river
and they wanted to be part of that
community they could see the benefit
for the children’s children’s children
by me cleaning up my backyard it had a
positive effect on their backyard
intergenerational sustainable
environmental
change so in summary in 2011
i got funding from the waikato river
authority
as part of the tainui treaty settlement
process in order to
improve the health and the well-being of
the waikato river
so with the chainsaw and digger
i started clearing kilometres of the
stream removed thousands of willows that
were blocking it
planted tens of thousands of trees
created dozens of white bait spawning
ponds started a pest control
program on all of the islands of the
waikato river delta
and finally building this boardwalk you
might think what’s up with the boardwalk
why would you
build the boardwalk wow if you want
intergenerational sustainable
environmental change
we have to start with our young people
they need to experience it to see that
river flowing
watch the fish coming in hear the birds
listen to the rattle of the harakiki and
the ropo in the swamp
then they connect to it it has meaning
and it resonates with them and they gain
ownership
that’s how you get into generational
sustainable environmental change
but where to where to from here
87 percent of our population live in
urban areas
international studies have shown a
direct correlation between our mental
and a physical wellbeing and our
connection to nature
now our child all new zealand is also
world famous not just in pest
eradication
but also in returning the flora and
fauna of endangered species
hitherto on offshore islands but now on
the mainland we want to bring it right
back into your backyard
and as chairs of the endangered species
foundation of aotearoa new zealand
i pledge to build upon the success of
our rural and our urban communities
not just in eradicating pests but
actually repopulating these landscapes
with the rarest of the rare
if we can empower our communities our
ewes
our kura our schools to play their role
in the restoration
of the more than four and a half
thousand endangered species in our tower
or new zealand
currently for example
there’s estimated to be less than 100
mature kaka big
trees left in the world yet most of us
can remember them growing in our
grandparents backyards
by empowering our communities and our
ewe and our schools
to come up with their own projects using
a combination of traditional knowledge
and modern technology we can provide
hope
we can provide a solution sorry in the
absence of hope
our communities nurturing nature
if i can do it in my backyard okay it is
slightly larger than most people’s
backyards
you can do it in your backyard no matter
how big or how small
it will make a difference at a time when
the mountain is calling us
it is time for us to heed her
with your basket and my basket combined
the people
and the environment can be sustained
thank you