Exploring nature needn’t be this hardcore
Comment: This past year, knowing that I had to stay mentally and physically fit in the job, I learned to hunt.
Hunting gets me out into a variety of environments, connected to the land, reading the weather, the way the sun falls, understanding the wind, and how to track these introduced animals.
It’s been a great source of focus. It’s also been an eye opener about the sheer volume of numbers of wild pests, munching their way across Aotearoa.
I primarily hunt on conservation land, and I always see large numbers of deer, goats, tahr, or the tell-tale bulldozing destruction of wild pigs. I shoot a few too.
Scientists have said the focus on predator-free NZ has taken our eye off the ball on browsing mammals. I agree entirely. We need to have a courageous conversation about what matters most to us. Our natural heritage or introduced pests?
1/ Getting in a flap
I want to see Kiwis getting as hot under the collar about nature (and the threats to it!) as they did about their favourite bird losing out to the pūteketeke in Bird of the Century this year.
It was totally nuts. It broke our voting verification system and it just about broke some of us at Forest & Bird who were handling all the national and international attention (and outrage).
The Bird of the Century craziness showed us that New Zealanders (and people overseas) care deeply about our native wildlife, and that we have a responsibility to ensure decision-makers are getting it right, when the whole world is watching (thanks John Oliver and his mate Jimmy Fallon).
In Aotearoa we love to be number one, but it’s a dubious honour that we’re the country with the highest proportion of threatened species in the world.
2/ Stirred, not shaken
For Aotearoa, and sadly this is a long shot, I wish for a year free from natural disasters. We live on shaky isles, I know, but climate change is making our situation even more precarious.
That over-used word ‘resilient’ papers over the many hundreds of individual tragedies experienced by people who lose family and friends, their homes and communities, and their sense of hope. Enough, already.
It’ll take a change in thinking and investment in nature-based solutions to genuinely make Aotearoa a safer place to live for our precious mokopuna and future generations. Nature isn’t our enemy, it’s our ticket to a safer future.
Making room for rivers and restoring wetlands to save us from floods, restoring the ngahere so our trees can store carbon – this is the future I want and that we need. A year without disasters would give us a moment to plan for a different future.
3/ Find the light
Honestly, I really wish I have more reasons to laugh in 2024. I have a loud and distinctive laugh, like a concrete drill, I’m told.
We’ve just started filming series 2 of Endangered Species Aotearoa. It was a week of laughing at my co-host Pax Assadi since the critters we were looking for proved more elusive than usual.
I spend a lot of my time walking that conservation advocacy tightrope between warning ‘the world is burning’ and ‘there is always hope.’
Each week I do get to laugh at some of the foibles of our more eccentric creatures on RNZ for Critter of the Week, and rate their attractiveness out of 10. I probably get more feedback about that than anything else I do with Forest & Bird.
4/ Learn faster
For Forest & Bird, my heartfelt wish is that, at our 200th birthday in 2123, we won’t still be fighting most of the same battles that we have been for our first 100 years.
Our founder Val Sanderson would be gutted to know that despite the best efforts of tens of thousands of society members, volunteers donors and staff, and many significant courtroom victories, governments and other leaders just keep slithering out of their responsibilities when it comes to the environment.
It’s like they see te taiao nature as ‘them’ and the economy and progress as ‘us’. It’s all one and the same. Healthy nature, healthy everything else.
His letter to aspiring candidates ahead of the 1935 general election, warning of floods, the need for forest protection and to deal to deer mirrors our current communications with politicians 90 years down the track. We’re bloody slow learners.
5/ Breathe in, deeply
Above all, I hope that all New Zealanders can all find a way to connect with te taiao in 2024, on their own terms and in their own way.
It doesn’t have to be hard core – lacing up your boots and pack and heading into the wilderness.
It’s sad to think that one of the few silver linings from the lockdowns, when we had time to notice the pīwakawaka fantails, butterflies and skinks in our gardens or along the route we walked, now seems a distant memory.
It’s been a really tough few years. Like most Kiwi, I’m shattered. And worried about the years ahead. It’s hard to think about our wildlife and wild places when we’re worried about our jobs and paying the bills.
But te taiao is uplifting, it’s enriching, it offers us hope and joy. In your garden, your nearest park, beach, river or reserve, take a moment to listen to the birdsong and breathe in, deeply.
Heck, there are kākā raucously spreading into towns and city centres (and ripping up trees) around the motu. If you can’t get to our critters, they will find a way to you – given half a chance.
