Promote • Educate
8 September/October 2019
Opinion
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,
magine this. We have dodged the climate
crisis bullet. We have arrived at 2050
and there is sufficient evidence that
carbon drawdown is happening and we
have stalled global warming.
Looking back, we only could have
achieved it with a series of transformations.
Tai Tokerau [Northland] was heavily
dependent on commodity exports. We
found that a big part of the solution to
reduce emissions and to sequester carbon
was in our food systems (www.drawdown.
org/solutions/food) and in the way we use
land (www.drawdown.org/solutions/land-
use). So we had to transform our food
systems, our economy and our communities
to transform our landscapes – and we made
landscapes that people had reasons to be in.
The landscape is now a mosaic of
diversity. The awkward patchwork of pines,
native forest and pasture has softened as we
have diversified and healed the land. Native
forests are restored, possums are rare and
kereru so abundant that people can harvest
them.
Food and trees are grown where they
suit the land. We no longer grow and harvest
huge acreages of pine. Our forests are more
diverse. Following the lead of the Northland
Totara Working Group (www.tanestrees.
org.nz/about-us/northland-totara-working-
group) we have a growing supply of
sustainably harvested totara. We no longer
trash the land with mass harvest clearances.
All farms are now regenerative and
pastures that sequester lots of carbon raise
healthy animals. Farms typically integrate
horticulture on soils and microclimates that
suit. The banana industry is thriving.
Our farms only rarely import fertilisers,supplements and biocides. Regenerative
practices have seen most farmers reduce
their fertilisers down to tiny amounts as
they build fertility naturally. Consequently
our streams and rivers are running clean,
with abundant tuna and koura. People
swim at the Town Basin in Whangarei.
Riparian plantings connect up with
other native forest so native birds can
fly from Auckland to the Cape and have
plenty of kai along the way. Eamon
Nathan of Reconnecting Northland
(reconnectingnorthland.org.nz) has retired,
his job done. With waterways protected,
sedimentation of of harbours has slowed
right down, providing a better fish nursery.
Millan Ruka’s work has paid off!
Rather than chasing big volumes of
commodities to ship overseas, we are now
producing more diversity and processing
a lot of it here. Food imports dropped
dramatically as the strength of the local
food movement grew. Now people eat
more fresh and locally produced food. We
still trade, and people further afield love
our pasture-fed meat and dairy. Our freshproduce has always been good, and now it
is even better.
A lot of people have returned home
to Northland because renewable energy is
abundant here. We were told back in 2019
that the future is rural (www.resilience.
org/resources/future-is-rural-report).
Every few kilometres there are villages and
papakāinga. People stay connected through
the internet and many have incomes from
online work.
The biggest transformation was in
the way we think. We had to disentangle
ourselves from identities as consumers.
Collectively we had to work out ways of
organising an economic system that wasn’t
predicated on growth. And we had to work
out how to engage effectively with one
another. Our love for the planet as our home
grew and we developed empathy for each
other and the rest of our human family.7KLVZDVÀUVWSXEOLVKHGDVDEORJSRVWRQ7DL
Tokerau Climate Change Action’s website.
Find out more about their work at
northlandclimatechange.org.Tai Tokerau 2050
%\Peter Bruce-Iri RI7DL
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