A video showcasing the highlights from mostnz.com. Most New Zealand is a website I made about what makes New Zealand so special and why we should care.
The Story of the Hauraki Gulf
The Hauraki Gulf is a special place with a tragic story, but the tide is turning.
Raewyn Peart is blogging about her upcoming book on haurakigulfstory.com I thought these posts were particularly insightful.
MOST New Zealand
I have been working on this project for the last few years.
It has been a lot of fun to make, the video work was challenging but also the most rewarding. There are 20 pages with an additional 11 fun facts, but there are so many more I want to add. Most of them involve going to remote locations and sitting quietly for a long time, so I have done the easier ones first. If the site proves popular I will add more pages. I wish it did not have ads but if the site makes money then I can easier justify working on it more.
My hope is that New Zealanders who experience the site better understand how special the New Zealand environment is and thereby value it more. If it proves popular the site may increase domestic and international tourism to wildlife destinations. I think this would be a good thing because growing our economy via tourism means better protection and investment in our natural assets. Where as growing our economy via primary industries means more industrial scale environmental degradation.
I think my favourite fact is probably the one with the worst video New Zealand has the most nosy bird was so much fun to shoot. I spent a few nights wondering around looking for kiwi after helping with the kiwi monitoring count at Tawharanui regional park. I had never before seen kiwi in the wild and given its slow metabolism and the cold night I was expecting a quiet, slow and shy bird. But were so fast – hooting off through the bush if I surprised them and so noisy – snorting away like pigs! I hope I get to spend lots more time in the wilderness with these birds and all the other creatures I captured on camera.
Agency capture
In New Zealand there are thousands of people who’s job it is to look out for nature. They start their career’s with a love for nature but then commercial priorities begin to disproportionately influence their decisions.
I think it starts of small, New Zealanders are very polite and do not like to “rock the boat”. Employees who don’t question the status quo are more likely to do well in a regulatory agency subject to the whim of government budgets. It’s also just easier to do nothing.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
– Edmund Burke.
The existing agency culture slowly overcomes the individual, first the words they use, then full blown cognitive dissonance. On the way I bet there are conscious compromises, a given regulator is likely to hear a lot more from industry they they will from environmental groups, they are also far more likely to get a well paid job in industry than an environmental group.
It’s a big problem, it’s built into the system and I do not know how to change it. However when a whistle blower does call our attention to it we need to act swiftly and harshly to remind regulators that they are being watched and that they have a real job to stand up for nature.
This week the Operation Achilles report leaked from the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) clearly describes how endangered Hector’s dolphins were killed by commercial fishers in 2012. The deaths were not included in the Department of Conservations reports which are critical in the ongoing management of this species. This is unforgivable especially now that we are down to less the 50 Maui dolphins (a subspecies with similar threats). Another independent study suggests that New Zealand’s total fisheries catch since 1950 is 2.7 times higher than officially reported!
MPI are failing not just to regulate but even to report on the industry. They are no longer able to manage the fisheries with the interests of all New Zealanders. Now marine experts are calling for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to be stripped of its responsibility for monitoring commercial fishing. I agree – the current system is not salvable, we need a new organisation with the right culture to do this job.
Threatened Species
I did some research for an upcoming side project to see how New Zealand compares to other countries in terms of threatened species. When I compared NZ to the rest of the world using the IUCN Red List (2013) we look ok, but things look much worse when we factor in our relatively small land mass. However poor countries like Ecuador are doing much worse than us, probably because the human/environment conflict is so high. However if we just look at OECD counties the same size as New Zealand or larger New Zealand has the most threatened species of birds per KM2
Here is the ranking:
- New Zealand
- Japan
- Chile
- Turkmenistan
- Italy
- Mexico
- Poland
- Spain
- Turkey
- Germany
- Finland
- United Kingdom
- France
- Norway
- Sweden
- United States
- Australia
- Canada
And the raw data
Hauraki Gulf Poster Series 2016
Stoked to have helped out with these posters which will go in every NZ Herald for 3 days running. Dave Gunson ( the illustrator ) is amazing. The messages ( especially the Goat Island one ) are really important.
Bioluminescent limpets
Last night I found myself standing in the middle of a bubbling bush clad stream. The full moon danced on the water, I turned my headlamp off and suddenly the stream banks came to life with glow worms. But the best bit was when I looked back down at where I had been walking. You see I had heard this was a great place to see the only bioluminescent limpets in the world. I was blown away by how bright they were, when disturbed the limpets release a bright green slime – so my footprints were lit up like a Michael Jackson video. My wonder was not displaced by my guilt for disturbing them and I proceeded to disturb more in order to document the behaviour (sorry guys). We need stronger bottom lines for fresh water quality if we are to keep wonderfull little creatures like these for future generations.
Revive our Gulf
I choose clean water
We have just launched the Choose Clean Water website which is sponsored by the tourism industry and will support the Choose Clean Water Tour. It highlights how people use freshwater in NZ,the plight it is in and supports a petition to do something about it.
How to be wild and free
“No!” This is how we teach restraint, over time the child masters the rules and becomes a functioning member of society. But he finds pleasure in the quiet places where no one can yell “No” at him, places where the rules don’t apply, where he can be wild and free.
There is a huge psychological transformation that occurs when you’re outdoors and find that you are no longer alone. Every imaginable cultural judgement can be projected in just a single person. They are not just changing our behaviour they are changing how we think, making us self conscious.
Some people feel this more than others, but perhaps this is why humans bleat and stomp about environmental rules. Because when we are in the wild with all those wild things, we feel wild too. We feel free from all those rules and judgements, those “No”s. So we fight those that tell us “don’t go there”, “don’t kill that” or “leave that alone”. Because they are reducing our freedom, which is true. But unfortunately we live in a world of human expansion and decreasing environmental resilience, our choices now have a greater cost than those of previous generations. We are slowly learning we can longer afford to be wild, we have to share our freedoms, not just with this generation but the next one too.
The reason the human population has grown so fast is because we are so adaptable and culture (our behaviours and technology) has evolved and will continue to evolve much faster than our genes. Those that are following the rules, participating in restoration, conservation, trash removal, pest eradication, citizen science and moving from eating to recording wildlife are developling a new culture. This new culture is already growing fast and with it some of our wilderness is coming back, building resilience and expanding our freedoms. We are finding a new way to be wild and free.