2020-03-07 New Zealand Listener

MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 31

We must make change. We must move

away from the 1990s economic model

that valued pines over native planting,

resulting in disasters such as the one

that sent a soup of mud and pine slash

into Tologa Bay’s community in 2018.

We must rethink investment models

that have favoured dairy conversions,

transforming forests into farms that

expose fragile pumice soils to erosion and

cows to unrelenting heat. The connection

between trees and animal welfare seems

obvious to too few.

Two years ago, with others, I started

the Aotearoa Circle, a group of public-

and private-sector leaders committed

to halting the decline of New Zealand’s

natural capital. It came on the coat-tails

of the Environment Aotearoa state of the

environment report, which showed all

our stocks of natural capital – soils, fresh

water, the climate, biodiversity and the

marine environment – were in decline. It

is reasonable to predict that in 100-200

years, our biological economy will be

bankrupt. It’s a horrific legacy to bequeath

to future generations. The Aotearoa Circle

aims to shift the levers of investment from

environmentally unsustainable extractive

industries to intergenerational protec-

tion of the pillars of natural capital. And

guess what the secret to preserving New

Zealand’s natural capital is? Trees.

As I contemplate my own demise, I

return often in my mind to my favour-

ite tree – that pūriri holding court on

Waiheke Island. I consider this magnifi-

cent being, by far the oldest living thing I

know, holding in its branches the diversity

of nature – from the plump, cheeky kererū

to the magnificent pūriri moth whose

lifeblood is the tree’s juicy sap.

Imagine that this pūriri could one day

be the last lonely cradle of the kererū

and pūriri moth. For them, like me, like

so much of New Zealand’s biodiversity,

time is running out. I can tell you in plain

English that I am dying. And although

the environment might speak its own lan-

guage, its cries cannot be misunderstood.

We know what is happening, we know

what we must do – now, we must simply

do it. l

SI

M

O

N

(^) Y
O
U
N
G
; (^) N
EW
SP
IX
Time is running out for me, and
it is with profound sadness that I
consider that time is running out,
too, for our precious environment.

1. Fenwick releasing
   his namesake kiwi
   on Motutapu Island
   in 2016. 2. At his
   Auckland home in


2. 
   

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