3. March on the Israeli Embassy

Although not one of the biggest, this is a personal favourite. In June, after Israel killed 16 aid workers on a boat carrying supplies to Palestinians in Gaza, marches occurred around the world, including here in humble Wellington. I had never been involved in a protest focusing purely on social justice before, and the thrill was tangible. It was like some sort of epiphany in Amelie, where I realised my life’s purpose, albeit with messier hair and less crème brulee.

2. Camp for climate action Aotearoa ‘Day of Action’

Here I’m cheating a little. The inaugural Climate Camp Aotearoa took place in December 2009, just after the completion of the unsurprisingly disastrous international climate talks in Copenhagen. After five days of workshops and sustainable living in Upper Hutt, over 150 climate campers took to the streets of Wellington to protest against false solutions to climate change, namely carbon trading. There were blockades, arrests and misunderstandings over what exactly “Stop trading our futures!” meant. We marched down Lambton
Quay for half an hour, blocking traffic until the cops bodily pushed us onto the pavement. Yes, this protest gets five stars for fun, action and energy.

1. Anti-mining march (Auckland)

The biggest national protest in years. In May, over 40,000 people marched down Queen St to ask John Key and his devilish sidekick Gerry Brownlee not to mine our most precious national parks. It was pretty damn successful, resulting in Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel being removed from the mining short-list. The march was colourful and upbeat, or at least it appeared to be so. I wouldn’t know, having been stuck in Warkworth for the event’s duration. I was wearing a remarkable amount of pink tulle in preparation for my role as a radical cheerleader, and the bus driver must have mistaken me for a sulky pastel shrub as he drove by.

While these protests were all obviously dazzling, the red carpet of activism continues. The year’s not over yet; there’ll be plenty more occasions to dust off your placards, your D-Locks and megaphones and take to the streets. All frivolity aside, there’s a lot out there to resist: freedoms are being eroded, work rights withdrawn, racist television presenters abound. Like some sort of malicious gumbo, there are abundant and diverse opportunities to speak truth to power. What will your best-dressed protests look like in 2011?

And then the National government announced that Petrobras, a Brazilian oil company, has been given a five year exploratory licence for oil and gas in the Raukumara Basin (off the East Cape). It was bad timing, to say the least.

Petrobas is infamous for its record of oil and gas spills. Greenpeace Brazil has claimed that from 1975-2001 Petrobras was responsible for 18 major spills, resulting in 141 deaths and about 29 million barrels of oil spilt. Petrobras is also renowned for trying to keep these spills undercover and understating any accidents that occur. They’re obviously a super company to sign a deal awarding the rights to our ocean floor with.

Aotearoa is apparently sitting on a black-gold mine of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia said so. When Gerry Brownlee announced a couple of weeks ago that “for far too long, New Zealand has not taken advantage of the wealth hidden in our hills, in our oceans, and in the ground”, his obvious implication is that if the fuels are there, then we must squeeze out every last drop of oil, every waft of available gas. In this particular worldview, natural resources exist purely for consumption, and consumption equals money. Here I imagine Gerry, his hands full of cigars and sherry, lounging in a smoking-jacket, lapels emblazoned with ‘profits before people’, chuckling as he gives out oil exploration packages.

As indicated by the Gulf Oil Spill, offshore drilling has implications for safety and for marine and coastal biodiversity. In Aotearoa, as in many locations across the globe, there are also implications for indigenous rights (um, seabed and foreshore, anyone?).

But we do need oil, right? I have a geologist friend (possibly now an ex-friend) who angrily berates me for opposing mining and drilling in New Zealand. He says that we do need to extract resources, so developed countries should try to use resources from their own lands, instead of fucking up poorer nations with lower safety standards. I dispute this; surely we need to stop exploiting fossil fuels now, because hey, their carbon emissions are making our planet uninhabitable. And it’s not just eco-idealism: there are alternative energy sources out there; we need to give them more love and more funding.

Instead of giving multinational oil companies Aotearoa’s natural resources on a plate, we could be encouraging the use of alternative energies and start questioning our patterns of resource use. It’s not just about the pelicans.

Okay, possibly not the highest-quality metaphor. But that is what we do, in university and in general life: we talk about stuff, we theorise, but we don’t transmute theory into action. I can bemoan climate change all I want, I can draw all sorts of conclusions and connections, but it doesn’t mean anything if my complaining doesn’t produce any results.

Back to our overly affectionate bedfellows: today’s example of the interdependency of social and eco inequalities is the destruction of Papuan rainforests, specifically the logging of Kwila, an endangered tree. Deforestation has already led to 83 per cent of Kwila disappearing from the forests of Papua, with the species estimated to slide completely off the map in 35 years if logging persists. We’re talking habitat destruction, species extinctions and hardcore contribution to climate change.

As if being an eco-disaster wasn’t sinister enough, the logging of Kwila also has serious human rights implications. Indigenous people in Indonesian Papua have their lands and resources stolen from them, and groups such as Amnesty International have recorded the torture and imprisonment of villagers working to oppose logging operations.

It seems obvious that logging Kwila is bad. One could say it’s extremely bad. But where’s all this endangered wood going? Who is ridiculous enough to purchase it? Well, Aotearoa and Australia receive about 60 per cent of all Kwila from Papua New Guinea, mostly in the form of attractive outdoor furniture. Yup, that’s right, we are selling and buying endangered rainforest timber; one more thing for New Zealanders to be proud of.

There’s currently no government regulation to stop illegally logged timber being imported into Aotearoa. While many stores have succumbed to pressure from environmental groups, a few continue to stock Kwila products and thus support human rights abuses and the trashing of Papuan rainforests. Bunnings Warehouse is one such example.

So here’s our chance. Not only to concurrently strive for social and environmental justice, but to put our fighting words into operation. Come cut your teeth on some protest action: join Rainforest Action in asking Bunnings to end the sale of endangered Kwila. We’ll see you and your pithy placard at 12pm, Saturday 2 October, outside Bunnings Warehouse, 46–56 Tory Street.

Before I began my tertiary education, it was easy to imagine university life as the following: intense wine-infused political debates after late-afternoon lectures; getting involved in student protest actions; carrying out research that actually has an impact on the real world. Admittedly, aspects of this romanticised vision have finally materialised, but it strikes me that, in general, university is not the veritable bastion of free-thought it could be. Victoria doesn’t have a culture of community, let alone student activism.

Educatory theorist Paulo Freire wrote of “education as the practice of freedom”. Is that what we’re trying to achieve in our musty lecture halls and bustling libraries: freedom? I’m no Arts major, but if I understand correctly, Freire was saying that encouraging critical thinking in education can lead to resisting oppression in everyday life. We could ask what this means for our depoliticised tertiary institutions, run as corporate bodies, the ideal post-graduation outcome being a well-paid job, if we’re lucky. Like a bad one-night stand, university tends to leave one unsatisfied, wishing that it’d just end so you can skulk away.

Does it have to be like this? Surely it’s possible to use our (dearly paid for) time at university to confront and change society? Yes, we can ask for a side-serving of activism on our curricular main course, but we can also confront issues from within our text strewn, all-nighter-induced academic haze. To misquote Noam Chomsky: if we consider university a place of privilege which confers an array of opportunities, then we have a responsibility to critique and challenge society.

Okay, we’ve done some mild theorising; now we need to work out how to put ‘radical academia’ into practice. With some handy Google Scholar-ing I gathered a few tips, such as voicing alternative viewpoints in our disciplines, reflecting on our privileged places within our research, and making our research relevant and understandable to the real world.

We write and talk about theory, but it’s rare that we attempt to live it. Although it may be difficult to live theory if you’re, say, a geologist, research within many disciplines has the capacity to record and create social change. But for real transformation to occur we need institutional metamorphosis; we need to challenge the paths our universities have taken. We can participate instead of being bystanders; we can drink copious cups of coffee and still have an impact on the outside world. Can’t we?

I’m not proud of this. Ideally, I would like to be supportive of groups working towards the same ends. We definitely need a whole spectrum of action against behemothic crises such as climate change. Campaigns I see as being ineffective, others may see as pragmatic. Approaches I consider the only way to really get to grips with an issue, others consider as being hopelessly idealistic, potentially polarising to a wider audience or simply dangerous.

So, maybe a diversity of views is good. And it is possible to work with a variety of perspectives concurrently. For instance, creating an environmentally sustainable community can simultaneously be a political statement of autonomy and localisation (the reverse of globalisation). If there are a myriad of approaches to tackling climate change, then it’s more likely everyone will get busy, and shit will get done, right?

Well, kinda. As long as we aren’t encouraging people to pursue courses of action which say, “hey we’re fixing the problem!” but actually achieve nothing, or even worse, exacerbate said problem. Recently, an article in the Guardian discussed how ‘clicktivism’ (signing e-petitions, joining Facebook groups and the like) is decreasing real-life political action by competing with local grassroots groups and colonising budding activist identities. No surprise there.

The ‘greenwashing’ of products is our second example. ‘Greenwashing’ describes how a company or government may pretend to be eco-friendly when they’re not. Say, for example, a certain cleaning brand markets their products as the only way to stop countless baby polar bears from perishing in arctic waters. People may feel a warm rosy glow of achievement when buying this product, but there are two important factors to consider: (a) the product might not do anything at all; (b) purchasing the product may make people feel like they have done enough. A focus on green consumption puts the onus of change on the individual, rather than treating climate change as a systematic problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I buy recycled toilet paper, get annoyed when people don’t recycle and use prettily-packaged eco beauty products. But I also strongly believe that consumption is not going to save the world. We need big changes, and we shouldn’t mask problems or limit political involvement by treating consumption as the primary route to change.

So, while I am attempting to respect all forms of action striving to tackle climate change, if you start informing me that changing light bulbs will save the world, I still might tell you to fuck off.

It was something of an occasion last weekend when I bought a $20 ticket and headed out in the evening fog to attend a different type of gig from those of my not-so-fevered youth. Set at the Newtown Community Centre, the seats were filled with a variety of ages. I guessed at people’s backgrounds: grey-haired radicals, colourfully-clad anarchists and long-time ardent unionists. The draw card of the night was David Rovics, a US-based musician who writes political folk songs about subjects as diverse as the occupation of Palestine and the reasons why Somali pirates are awesome.

Rovic’s music was alternatively hilarious and heart-wrenching, and ended up giving me more chills than three years of living in a Dunedin flat put together. His songs brought about an almost uncontrollable urge to chain myself to something (erm, in a political way, of course). I wondered: what is it about a well-written song that can tear you up? It’s one thing to read, research and superficially understand an issue, and another to be suddenly overwhelmed with sadness by means of a simple melodic and lyrical progression.
In the realm of climate change psychology, studies continually find that providing information alone results in no real behaviour change. We don’t respond well to plain facts alone, but what about emotions?

Call me an idealist, but I figure that if we could better understand the struggles of others we’d dig so deep in our pockets for Pakistan that we’d hit a coal seam. If we could begin to feel the effects of military occupations far across the globe we’d be protesting outside embassies daily, weekly, forever. The problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to imagine another human’s pain, particularly when they’re unknown and distant. Let’s not even try to talk about other forms of life: how do you empathise with a carnivourous snail? What about an ecosystem?

Although communicating intangible feelings using analytical descriptions can obviously be pretty problematic, for most people emotions can be translated through music, visual art, and fiction. That’s why protest songs are so important: because they can easily make emotional connections that encourage peeps to take action. Unsurprisingly, in many different cultures you can find a massive back-catalogue of songs calling for social change. Protest music gives commonality to artists diverse as Bikini Kill, Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to find any climate change-related protest music. I fear this is a niche that must be filled. If you’d like to join my hip-hop collective, please contact me ASAP.

My background in craft is obviously not strong. Give me a vegan cupcake recipe and I’ll fatten you up in no time, but crochet hooks give me an uncomfortable feeling that someone—hopefully the person that handed me said crochet hook—will soon lose an eye. This ineptitude is a shame: craft is now socially desirable, just like Doc Martens and oversized, horrendously patterned jerseys.

If we travel back a few decades, craft wasn’t considered that cool. Store-bought, plastic-wrapped and seen-on-TV items were lusted after, not the flawed handmade-with-love variety. Real art got stuck up in huge galleries and real artists learned their skills at art schools and academies. Next there were skilled craftspeople making functional (and beautiful) woodwork, pottery and textiles. Then, finally, you had ‘women’s work’, activities like knitting, making clothes, weaving, crochet and the like. Never given value in economic systems, this important work was marginalised and often used to reinforce traditional gender roles. For feminists of my mum’s generation, handmade craft was considered a tool to keep women downtrodden.

But craft has come back with a vengeance. The ‘Stitch and Bitch’, Etsy.com and increased art-world interest has meant that handmade is not only appreciated, it’s also economically profitable. ‘Craftivism’ is the feral grandchild of this revival. A patchwork-Frankenstein’s Monster of craft and activism, the term was created in 2003 by writer Betsey Greer to describe “a way of looking at life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper and your quest for justice more infinite”. Which, um, sounds really good, but leaves me questioning what a craftivist actually does?

A quick rifle through the internet throws out these suggestions: knitting pink blankets for tanks; guerrilla art; and ‘knit-ins’, where knitting circles take over a public space. Feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-war, environmentalist… craftivism can be all these things. For more clarification I had a chat with local crafty-lady Raven Cretney, who is part of Nanatech, a group “passionate about reinvigorating the skills of the past and present”. Raven was unsurprisingly enthusiastic, saying “Craft can be used for all sorts of purposes: to make a statement about a political issue through knit tagging, to brighten a public space, to make clothes for someone in need or to learn and build community.”

This was encouragement enough for me. While I have no plans to finish knitting my ex’s scarf, I do have plans to knit a tea-cosy covering the Beehive, or perhaps Gerry Brownlee.

In May this year, after displays of public concern, the Justice and Electoral Select Committee sent the Search and Surveillance Bill back to the drawing board. In the last fortnight the bill has swooped back into the parliamentary picture.

The Justice and Electoral Select Committee has released recommendations for the bill in an interim report, suggesting changes including clarifying the “relationship between the bill and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990”.

The report indicates that the extent of power envisioned in the initial bill will be downsized, however, those opposed to the bill say the interim report does not correct fundamental problems.

“The Search and Surveillance Bill is an assault on every New Zealander’s fundamental rights and freedoms. There is simply no justification for this massive increase in state power,” says Lee Warren from Campaign to Stop the Bill.

In its current format, the bill will allow warrantless searches to be carried out on suspicion and grants ‘enforcement officers’ powers to seize items in plain view.

Other contentious provisions include agencies being given the right to search computers and email, and the introduction of examination orders, requiring individuals to report to the police for questioning. Circumstances where video and audio surveillance are able to be carried out will also broaden dramatically.

While supporters say the bill is simply a tool to consolidate existing powers, those opposed say this is not the case. Many of the powers that the Search and Surveillance Bill will grant to police and government agencies are previously unlegislated.

Further public submissions are being called for on the Search and Surveillance Bill.

Submissions can be emailed to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee Clerk at james.picker@parliament.govt.nz until Friday 3 September.

A public debate will be held on Monday 30 August between Michael Bott from the Council for Civil Liberties and National MP Chester Burrows, venue to be confirmed.

In early 2009 I arrived back from my first Camp for Climate Action get-together. I’d been remarkably cheerful the entire bus ride home: gossiping with middle-aged women, smiling at dairy owners, not even scowling at small children. My joy was almost tangible: I couldn’t wait to tell everyone what I’d discovered. Surprisingly, my flatmates appeared more worried than pleased at my happiness—there was suspicion when, instead of silently-staring-at-my-cup-of-coffee, I chose to wax lyrical at breakfast. They listened to my chatter, observed my newly learned hand signals, accepted my enthusiasm, and concluded that I had been wooed into a cult.

There was no cult. Rather, I had been seduced by the charms of consensus decision making. I was overwhelmed with the beauty of it: a process where everyone agrees and everyone has a say. In a group of 40 people each was welcome—no, encouraged—to give their opinion. Minor disagreements were worked out relatively easily and the atmosphere of trust was so thick you could’ve sliced it and eaten it on toast.

Consensus is defined as process of making decisions collectively, where individuals come to agreement together through discussion and synthesis of ideas. While voting must always deliver a win-lose verdict, consensus aims to reach a decision every single person is happy with.

Hand signals are used to aid effective consensus processes (and I think this is where my flatmates got worried): a display of jazz hands indicates “yes” or “I agree”, a ‘time out T’ signifies “technical point”, and a large forearmed formed ‘X’ is a “block”, showing that you disagree with a proposal or decision. Initially, waggling my ‘spirit-fingers’ simultaneously with 40-odd activists felt like an episode of Glee staged in an alternate reality, but soon consensus became my decision-making process of choice. I’m now ruined for conventional groups. When Steve talks out of turn I burn with anger; when shy Simone is left out I despair; when Ying dominates the entire conversation I shrivel inside. Give me a facilitator and a speaking order and I’ll be in fairness nirvana.

The length of time needed is the one serious downfall, but it’s worth it. When people know that their view must be heard, arguing caused by egos and defensiveness practically disintegrates. Consensus works not from a basis of rainbows, unicorns and magic, but from the positive assumption that everyone actually might agree. Crazy, eh.

I get annoyed when people talk exclusively about “fostering leadership” and “young leaders”, as increasing participation and equality in society also needs to be heavily underlined. For me, getting involved with a group that utilises horizontal decision-making processes resulted in recognising how many peeps’ opinions are suppressed daily. Not by force, but simply by not making room for them.

Direct democracy: it just makes consensus. Groan.

Usually when you mention guerrilla gardening, people begin asking interested questions about the lifestyles of herbivorous primates. To halt visions of vegetable-fuelled rampages in Tokyo, it helps to define ‘guerrilla’ as an “irregular armed force” and explain that ‘guerrilla gardening’ is the creation of gardens on land that doesn’t belong to you, without permission from the land owners. Guerrilla gardening could describe how your Aunt Barbara’s dahlia bed is encroaching on her neighbour’s yard, but more commonly refers to deliberate and politically-charged acts of re-vegetation.

Neglected private or state land may be reclaimed by gardeners for a number of reasons: to produce food for individuals or communities; to beautify community areas; to bring life into urban landscapes; to highlight issues of land rights and ownership; or as a form of societal critique. In the United Kingdom, members of the “Pansy Project” plant flowers in public places where homophobic attacks have occurred.

There’s a variety of guerrilla gardening methods out there. One idea would be to sneak, balaclava-shrouded, down Lambton Quay at 3am, leaving tubs of flax at every bus stop. Or your whanau could plant cabbages and carrots in the round-a-bout down the road. Perhaps you and your crew could spend an afternoon creating ‘seed bombs’—dried balls of seeds, clay and compost—to throw at vacant lots and car parks as you cycle through the city.

I’m not really a gardener, although in February I did watch a friend tie green beans up with string. And once I fell out of a lemon tree. So I decided to undertake the simplest act of guerrilla gardening imaginable: throwing seeds around the outskirts of Aro Valley Park. It wasn’t very dramatic: a woman curiously glanced my way before continuing to tow her small pug along; a busker smiled at me so I glared back at him suspiciously. I would sincerely doubt anyone remotely involved in Aro Park cares about floral additions to the neighbourhood. Will my efforts result in a glorious efflorescence of resistance? Probably not, but at least I got my feet wet (or nails dirty). Next stop: sowing silverbeet seeds on a traffic island.

Try as I might, I can’t see anything wrong with guerrilla gardening. Growing edible and/or beautiful plants in misused or neglected places is indisputably positive.

The second option, response b), is one of mild horror. ‘Activist’ is often considered synonymous with ‘terrorist’. Mix-ups aside, there are quite a few issues with the terrorist label anyway. There’s currently no internationally agreed-upon definition of terrorism under criminal law, and the term is often used by authorities to delegitimise opponents while approving of state actions. Whatever the problems with the general concept, activism and terrorism are definitely not interchangeable nouns.

Personally, almost every activist I’ve met has been super nice: they would help you plant your veggie patch, give you a bed when you’re sleepy, a bowl of stew when you’re broke. Terrifying if you’re scared of Scottish Fold kittens, perhaps.

Let’s zoom in and look at activism in its most stereotypical ‘macho’ form: direct action. Direct action is action undertaken by individuals or collectives outside of the usual political field with the aim of realising political, social or economic changes. It’s not necessarily illegal. This is how ‘activism’ is frequently portrayed in conventional media: the newsworthy, train-stopping, ship-jumping side.

There are many environmentalists out there who dislike direct action wholeheartedly. However, many of the groundbreaking events in our history books were scandalous, socially unacceptable and illegal, in their day. Instead of us seeing them in a negative light, time has cast them in a rosy glow. Rosa Parks, women’s liberation, Ghandi’s salt march, peaceful resistance at Parihaka… I think we can all agree that direct action has helped humans get to places we needed to go. When my indignant enviro-pals chorus “but you’re polarising people!”, they are forgetting the freedoms and human rights that radical activism has won. When we need big societal changes, such as for climate change, baby steps like changing light bulbs aren’t going to cut it alone. A problem like climate change is of epic Jurassic Park-like proportions, and calls for many forms of attack; action in Veloraciptor, Diplodoci and T-Rex forms.

Direct action isn’t to everyone’s taste, but that doesn’t guarantee status as a political wallflower. We don’t all have to be Pete Bethunes to make some sort of difference. A whole artillery (unfortunate metaphor) of action on social and environmental crises are needed: grandpas in the rear, writing letters to the editors; mums voraciously picketing on the frontline; students sweeping in from the side to ferociously lobby politicians; young professionals taking out fossil-fuelled power stations left right and centre. Change can come in many forms, regardless of an individual’s personal preferences.

Not only are healthy communities and societies dependent on the participation of us all, being actively involved in deciding how we affect our world is our right.

Not all of us, of course. My neighbours are picking piles of silverbeet big enough to make a six year-old cry. In the depths of the nature-loving Cotton Building there are office windows full of tomato and basil planters, with the occasional mandarin tree thrown in for good measure. If you listen hard enough you may hear proposals for potato plots in the stairwells, conversations on eel-harvesting in the corridors, and tales of Tahr-shooting in the tearoom (for the uninitiated, Himalayan Tahr are a large, invasive ungulate).

For the majority of New Zealanders, it seems the concept of growing and harvesting our own food is either unwelcome or impossible. Here in Aotearoa many traditional mahinga kai (food-gathering places) are unable to be utilised by communities due to loss of lands as a direct result of colonisation, or through degradation of habitats and threat to native species.

Globally, we all know things aren’t too pretty, food-wise. Although it’s difficult to pin down concrete statistics, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated in late 2009 that over one billion people are undernourished worldwide, up from the 854 million estimated in 2006. Contrary to our childhood dinner table entreaties to “think of the starving children in Africa”, almost two-thirds of hungry peeps live in Asia and the Pacific. Suffice to say, it’s extremely depressing. So what to do?

The New Zealand Government is calling for ‘better’ (read: more intensive) global agriculture, to cut greenhouse gases and feed the hungry. They argue that we need to industrialise food production, possibly even adding a few pinches of Genetically Modified Organisms to keep up with the exponentially expanding human population. While our swelling species probably doesn’t help matters, it’s too easy to pin all our food issues on “overpopulation”. In fact, the world currently produces enough food to feed us all.

There’s a mash-up of reasons for malnutrition: poverty, harmful economic systems and conflict being first in line. What we’ve got here is a distribution problem. Think of Aotearoa: we’re a ‘developed’ country with a welfare system, supposedly clean water, and hundreds of thousands of cows meandering around paddocks nationwide. However we’re still subject to skyrocketing food prices, with families who can’t afford to buy breakfast, and kids succumbing to “third world” illnesses because of micro-nutrient deficiencies.

A primary school kid opens her lunchbox and sees no fresh fruit; simultaneously 30 fresh oranges are thrown into a skip behind a supermarket, resting next to a can of dented beans and a discarded tray of eggs, just one cracked. Last year The Guardian reported that global hunger could be alleviated by redistributing the millions of tonnes of food disposed of annually in the UK and US.

In New Zealand it’s particularly difficult for shops to give way unsold products, due to higher regulations dealing with use-by dates. While your local bakery staff may dearly love to give their excess custard pastries to the city mission, it’s likely difficult for them to do so.

It’s a bit upsetting when you start to mull over it. Luckily, there’s a global movement out there dealing with this sort of waste. It’s called freeganism.

Freeganism: a brief introduction

‘Freeganism’ is a mash-up of ‘free’ and ‘vegan’, describing an anti-consumerist lifestyle based on “limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources”. The movement sprung from a collision of alterglobalisation and environmentalism in the 1960s, with primary aims of reducing waste, limiting environmental and social harms resulting from goods production, and building awareness on how human actions impact the world.

Freeganism is often motivated for environmental, religious or political reasons. Freegan activities may include building renewable energy systems, squatting and cycle-sharing, For sake of simplicity we’ll focus on three issues of food freeganism: ‘free stores’, Food Not Bombs and dumpster diving.

But first, my disclaimer: I’m no active freegan. Rather, I’m interested in portraying freeganism in a fairly accurate light. Like all movements, freeganism is diverse and individuals are motivated by a smorgasbord of reasons; this article does not pretend to represent the movement.

Buying food, for free?

In May 2010, a small vibrant business was set up on Ghuznee Street by artist Kim Paton. The shop stocked a range of fresh produce and grocery items, but with a catch: all goods were completely free. The Wellington Free Store was designed to raise discussion around the value of products and definition of ‘waste’, exploring what happens to edible food items after trading stops.

For a fortnight customers flocked to look, comment and ‘buy’. The store was supplied by a number of local retailers, many who already provide excess stock to social agencies at no cost. Goodies included coffee from Supreme and People’s Coffee, bread from Arobake and Brooklyn bakeries, and produce from Countdown and Woolworth’s supermarkets.

Self-facilitation was rife: those in need carried shopping bags home with them; students self-moderated to a larger degree; others might have chosen a singular item. In a world where ‘need’ is often socially constructed, the Free Store showed that individuals and families may have a better idea of their own needs.

I recently caught up with Paton, planning a brief retrospective of the project. But I was pleasantly surprised: the Free Store is likely returning to our windy city. Paton says the two-week trial was a test, and that she plans to “look at viability over a longer period of time”; by late August a longer, four-month version of the Free Store should be underway, largely due to youth community group Zeal taking on the project.

Kaibosh is a Wellington non-profit organisation that has been working since 2008 to redistribute food products from retailers that would otherwise have been disposed of to charities. The Free Store worked alongside this organisation, but Paton considers the retail side of the Free Store important: “Businesses and shops are public spaces, and customers felt comfortable starting up in-depth, complex, intensive discussions.” Customers also commented that the Free Store had no shame attached, unlike perusing a food bank.

While Paton is incredibly passionate, she recognises that the store “should only exist when it’s viable to exist”. In a perfect world, businesses would change the way they run and the store would no longer function. This seems a far-off dream, but at least Free Stores are booming. A Dunedin Free Store is currently coming to life, and Paton has been asked to carry out a trial run in Waitakere City.

Diving into Dumpsters

Paton’s project highlights wastage in a consumer-friendly manner. But there’s also a secret squirrel community of dumpster divers out there, refusing to let supermarkets and bakeries throw away perfectly edible (and often remarkably delicious) food.

While it seems that everyone wants to jump on the ‘free store’ wagon, dumpster diving is the less cute-and-cuddly side of the Freegan coin. Not everyone likes the idea of climbing into dumpsters and over barbed wire to get their weekly groceries, and not everyone is physically able to. Then there’s the issue of legality: um… it’s definitely illegal. Trespass is the standard charge, but theft could also be on the cards. Last year three Dunedin students were arrested and charged for ‘diving’, so it’s not something to do for the hell of it.

The divers I talked to were quick to point out their focus on the unequal distribution of resources. Dumpstered food is often redistributed to those who need it through collectives or groups. Like the Wellington Free Store, dumpstering is seen as a stop-gap measure in an imperfect world, not a salve to fix the underlying problem.

The magnitude of wastage can be astounding: slightly dented tins of baby formula; deformed but perfectly delicious apples; more baguettes than you could ever carry. There’s enough to share it around.

Food Not Bombs

Admittedly, I was confused when I first heard about Food Not Bombs. It was a few years back, when I was still relatively green to being ‘green’, and the idea of giving away food for free sounded good, but why? My naive questions on the subject were answered with “Food’s a human right, yeah?” So I thought a little harder and decided I couldn’t help but agree with such blatant logic.

Food Not Bombs is a global grassroots movement of independent collectives which gives free vegetarian and vegan food to hungry people as a means of protesting war, poverty and military spending. Ingredients may be provided by surplus food from supermarkets and shops, or sourced from dumpsters. The movement has supported anti-globalisation and environmentalist actions during its lifespan of almost three decades, with a rough ideology that corporate and government policies allow hunger to continue in the “midst of abundance”.

Food Not Bombs has been represented in Wellington by a myriad of groups over the years. Soup and chocolate seem to be favourites of both food givers and receivers. One frosty Saturday night at 2am you may be lucky enough to score some free hot chocolate as you wander, tequila-soaked, down Manners Mall.

Just like the Wellington Free Store and dumpster diving, Food Not Bombs draws attention to the ridiculous amount of waste our society creates and the terrible state of our food distribution. Tonight, when we sit down for dinner, let’s remember that elsewhere peeps are simultaneously dining on dumpstered dal and rice; that volunteers are ladling out free soup; and that others have nothing at all.

Dumpster Diving Etiquette:

• Network with other divers.
• Dress appropriately: we’re talkin’ thick plastic gloves, long-sleeve shirts and pants, sturdy fabrics and footwear.
• Brings props: a torch and bags for carrying goodies at minimum.
• Be careful: watch for broken glass and unwrapped meat products.
• Be stealthy: Make sure no one is around and keep a look out.
• Take only what you can use or share.
• Leave the dumpster as you find it.
• Clean items (and yourself) thoroughly afterwards.
• If discovered, leave quickly and politely.
• Know your rights, ‘cause it is illegal.

They say each generation thinks that they’re going to be the last. In ours, predictably, things seem particularly dire: climate change, peak oil, rising inequalities, increasing corporate power, a National-led government.

Historically students have been associated with resistance. We’ve often been first in staging demonstrations, at the forefront of protests and actively involved in political debates. We’ve also been considered as privileged above other sectors of society. Some feel that this privilege makes activism a simple act of rebellion from (frequently) white, (sometimes) spoiled, (variably) rich kids.

Touché, this may often be true, but privilege can also be a reason to be politically active. We have time to drink soy lattes and argue about theories to save the world. We’re completely broke, but that’s because we spent all our grocery-money on beer and tickets to Broken Social Scene. Because of the country we live in, our ancestry and our upbringing, we have been given (or rather: have had the opportunity to pay dearly for) the opportunity to skim-read articles as we to stalk our potential crushes on Faceboo… ahem, I mean: to pursue knowledge.

I’m not saying it’s easy: stats lectures are no frolic on the beach, psych all-nighters are no romantic picnic, but still. We have time to learn and we have time to be politically active. Here you inform me (politely) that I’m incorrect: you’re a student-single-parent; you have to, for varying reasons, fight to stay in the university system; your obsessive watching of True Blood leaves you no time for maintaining adequate personal hygiene, let alone activism.But you could try, if you wanted to. At least: I want to. That’s what this column is all about: trying to be politically active in everyday life. Not just chaining yourself to trees, throwing your shoes at world leaders and embassies, or pieing the CEO of BP in the face (there is a global pieing movement; google ‘Biotic Baking Brigade’ if you don’t believe me), but less dramatic forms of action too. Activism can encompass those everyday actions and thoughts which challenge oppressive power structures, a definition which expands the activist net further. Notice that many academics would be included in this definition.

In our isolated, i-phone’d, ‘I’-centric lives we’re not used to active democracy extending beyond voting. We get angry about our crap ETS, about the Gaza Flotilla massacre, about GST rises and off-shore oil exploration, but it’s difficult to bridge to action beyond e-petitions. This should come as no surprise; if we’re brought up in a society that encourages complacency, then hey, we’re gonna be complacent.

So let’s try it out: street art, guerrilla gardening, autonomous communities, permaculture, social movements, protests, radical academia, creative protesting… there’s a 50 cent mixture of activist opportunities out there, waiting to be savoured. I’m not promising anything, but I think it might be fun.

I’ve always wanted to be an eco-ninja. Not only do you gain a legitimate occasion to pair a Hepburn-esque turtleneck with a beret, you also get to act like a stealthy spy in real life. And for a positive purpose: I’m quite sure that bank robbers or embezzlers don’t get the same virtuous flush as an environmental activist in action. Unless they’re embezzling from Shell Oil, or robbing the rich to give to the poor, hopefully while looking as dissimilar to Russell Crowe as possible.

Back in the day, there were definitely quite a few seven-year-olds out there that excitedly checked out picture books detailing voyages of the Rainbow Warrior from their public library, presumably alongside copies of (the retrospectively racist) Tintin in the Congo. Some kids grow up wanting to be an astronaut, or the Blue Power Ranger, and some grow up wishing for the chance to chain themselves to trees, dolphins or diggers.

No matter what your childhood dreams entailed, it’s pretty cool when you get to actually act them out, even to the smallest smidgeon.

A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a Greenpeace action at the Fonterra’s Clandeboye factory in Cantebury. Although I wasn’t one of the four super-staunch activists who blocked coal deliveries to the plant for over nine hours, I was still there; talking to workers at the factory, and checking the activists were feeling alright at the beginning. I even got to wear the enviable smokin’-hot, fluoro-orange, full-body jumpsuit.

All the locked-on activists were arrested, but not before they’d emphasised how Fonterra’s use of coal is contributing to New Zealand’s carbon emissions, and therefore contributing to causing climate change. 

Fonterra and farming is often a difficult issue for New Zealand environmentalists to tackle because so much of our national income comes from agricultural exports. As Mr Key loves reminding us, our National government plans to “balance New Zealand’s economic opportunities with our environmental responsibilities”.

At Clandeboye the problem was far simpler. Instead of coal, Fonterra could run factories on cleaner fuels such as biomass. In fact, Fonterra had already tried using biomass, but decided against it ‘cause it cost a little more cash to help protect the climate. Greenpeace thoughtfully gifted Fonterra three tonnes of wood pellets. At the time of writing there has of yet been no thank you card delivered. 

Aotearoa has a reputation for being ‘100% Pure’. We use this line to sell our country and (directly or indirectly) to endorse our products overseas: eager Germans fly in because of our pristine waterfalls and glowingly film-referenced mountains; English mums buy our lamb because it’s considered more environmentally friendly (and it’s probably cheaper) than lamb grown closer to home. Protecting our pureness is not only a question of protecting the land we love, it’s also a case of protecting our international reputation and our export-heavy economy.

But, if I’m being honest, talking about “protecting the environment for the economy” depresses me. What would my seven-year-old self think: she’d be stoked about my orange jumpsuited adventure, but what about protecting the environment and minimising human-caused climate change just because we care?

She would not be impressed. John Key is no Captain Planet. There are heaps of ways Aotearoa could get it together, but if not, we’ll have to do it ourselves. The power is (y)ours.

Sometimes doing the ‘right thing’ can be confusing. After a while you realise that it’s pretty damn hard to find a perfect answer to anything. As much as you may secretly want an eco-halo, you have to take into consideration the consequences of your celestial circlet; where did the gold originate from, and which toxic chemicals were used to polish it until it gleamed?

Humans are, obviously, not separate from the environment. We are part of it, interact with it, and can affect it both negatively and positively. In our everyday lives we can influence our own personal environmental impact, at least to an extent. If you live within our Westernised society—instead of, say, choosing to live in a cave near Motueka, surviving solely on huhu grubs which have died of natural causes—then it’s extremely difficult not to have a large environmental footprint, simply by using the resources we all use every day: electricity, food in plastic casing, roads, water.

Apart from the immediate unpleasantness of eating raw huhu grubs, attempting to remove yourself from society has another downside: going completely off-grid would mean you can’t even attempt to change our society. You would be doing your own bit, which is wonderful, but you’re not getting close to tackling the real problems when most people are continuing with business as usual.

So we don’t live in a black and white film noir world: how does one navigate the grey? We might each have to work that for ourselves. Is attending an international conference of climate change worth you flying halfway across the world in a carbon-spewing metal bird? It depends what you think it will achieve.

Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to talk purely about individual changes. We need corporations, governments and businesses to make huge transitions, maybe even more than we need new light bulbs and reusable cloth-bags and personal pledges to never iron a shirt again.

If we consider our world-changing actions limited to our consumer choices then we are buying completely into core aspects of what has driven our current ecological and climate crises. Consumption shouldn’t be our primary method of choosing how our worlds function. Yes, we can support or not support products or industries by deciding whether to purchase their goods. It does make a difference if you commit to only buying recycled organic toilet paper. However, I think how we participate politically is far more significant than the decision to use either soap-nuts or Cold Water Surf to wash our sheets. And political participation does not only mean ticking boxes every three years; political participation can be protesting, talking to MPs, or simply chaining yourself to a bulldozer.

It seems to me that we need to work on the hulking woolly mammoth issues collectively, as it’s our emphasis on individualism and overconsumption which has (partially) got us into this mess to start with.

While I’ve only ever taken one paper that included the joys of economics, the “tragedy of the commons” is mentioned everywhere, it seems. While I get the point, I wonder if it actually works in practice. Over the centuries, while the global “commons” have been increasingly siphoned off into private ownership, our environment hasn’t sunk deeper into depression while this has been happening. Private ownership doesn’t usually appear to lead to finer resource management, unless you’re a neoclassical economist.

Abandoning public goods to market forces is walking down this darkened, broken bottle-strewn alley, just waiting to be mugged. In Aotearoa the Local Government Amendment Act 2002 was passed through parliament on its first parliamentary reading earlier this month. This amendment bill would allow councils to contract out water services to private companies for up to 35 years (up from the current uppermost level of 15 years). Unsurprisingly, Mr Rodney Hide was behind what Labour has dubbed water “privatisation”.

People should value water, there’s no doubt about it, but domestic water use pales beside the towering amounts of water used for industrial and agricultural purposes. Surely domestic water services should be treated as a fundamental human right rather than a means of ensuring maximum profits.

But, hey, don’t listen to me: I prefer orange juice, just as long as it’s fair-trade, free-range and dolphin-friendly. 

Sometimes we think we’re pretty great, here in New Zealand. There’s a smorgasbord of different reasons: our felicitous menu includes beaches, Bret and Jemaine, biodiversity, and also, apparently, our energy production methods.

For a long time now, New Zealand has boasted of an extremely high rate of ‘renewable’ energy. While the UK, France and the US primarily rely on thermal power (from fossil fuels) and, increasingly, nuclear energy, Aotearoa has had the enviable status of being renewably righteous for a while now.

Or have we? Renewable electricity generation in Aotearoa has been dropping for decades. In the 1950s we were completely powered by hydro, but by 2007 levels had stooped to about 55 per cent—in the same year Helen Clark announced a national target of 90 per cent renewable electricity by 2050. This, unsurprisingly, is not on track, with thermal power stations increasingly supplying our growing energy needs.

What’s really interesting is the question of ‘renewable’ renewable energy. Here, in the land of the long white cloud, we have been brought up with wind power and hydropower. They bring our kettles to the boil and our electric blankets to a sufficient level of toastiness. Renewable energy (and nuclear in other, more populous, less elongated countries) is touted as one of the means to save the world from imminent climate-change-caused destruction.

While it is so incredibly important that we stop using fossil fuels, some forms of ‘renewable’ energy aren’t that awesome. Large-scale scale hydropower has been a serious source of altercation, with an international history of resistance surrounding it. Maybe hydro is super in terms of greenhouse emissions, but it also has other effects.

The Narmada dams in India are one of the most high-profile cases of resistance to large hydro. This ongoing ‘development’ project kicked off in 1979, comprising of plans for 30 major, 135 medium, and 3000 small dams. The Save Narmada Movement sprang to life in the 80s, garnering support from the likes of activist/novelist (and girl-crush) Arundhati Roy. Protestors’ qualms centred not only on the environmental impacts of the large dams, but also on the displacement of millions, particularly indigenous tribal people.

Outcomes of the movement include failed court battles and a significant victory when the World Bank removed itself from the picture.

Here in Aotearoa there has also been a history of resistance. From 1959 to 1972 the Save Manapouri campaign successfully fought against raising the level of Lake Manapouri. During this campaign an impressive (almost) 10 per cent of the New Zealand population signed a petition relating to the project in 1970.

At the moment there’s some discussion going on about a $300 million dam on the Mokihinui River. The Mokihinui is situated just north of Westport and is a tangible example of our bordering on mythical ‘100% Pure New Zealand’.

The Department of Conservation has called for Meridian Energy’s resource consent to be overturned on building this 80-metre-high 300-metre-wide dam. They say the dam and associated infrastructure would have serious effects on the river and native wildlife. The Mokihinui is also said to have significance for local iwi, although a sub-tribe of Ngai Tahu now supports the project after a cultural fund was set up for them by Meridian.

Although not as glaringly sinister as the spectre of mining on conservation land, building large dams like this has similarly serious environmental impacts. It’s just that the sympathetic wrapper of ‘renewable energy’ takes away the sting.

On the flip-side, proponents argue that we need the Mokihinui Dam to meet New Zealand’s energy needs, and that opposition to hydro schemes has led to increased resource consent approval for coal and gas-fired thermal stations, ominously increasing our greenhouse gas emissions.

While no expert, I think that this is an over-simplification. Rather than pitting destructive mega-hydro against carbon-spewing coal-stations in a dog-fight to the death, instead we could choose decentralised renewables and a decrease in energy consumption. And, in Aotearoa’s current climate-wrought climate, we want to do just that. Let’s give power to the people, eh.

I almost yearn for those far-off days when environmental issues seemed distinct from all those other problems. In my mind there were the whales, nuclear energy and logging on one side, and the human rights abuses, genocides and death penalties on the other. They had no connection; there was no bridge between them. There was custard and there was sponge cake, rather than a big ole’ bowl of problem trifle.

Back then I was happy, in my naivety, to see environmental difficulties as the sole focus, the sole subject to rant about at unprepared indie kids after too many glasses of cheap red wine. Climate change changed all that. Suddenly, it didn’t make sense to separate the environmental from the social, political and economic—it was all tied together in one sprawling monster, with our current economic and societal system at its centre. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am still essentially an environmentalist in my dreadlocked, barefoot heart, but now I see a slightly bigger, more holistic picture. And it’s not that pretty. This is no trifling trifle.

Even on the most superficial level, social justice and environmental justice seem to be inseparable. For instance, if you want to protest about the environment anytime soon, then you should be wary about the recommended reform of the Search and Surveillance Bill.

Human rights advocates around the country are twitching with dissatisfaction at the bill, which was based on a Law Commission report that recommended reform of search and surveillance powers held by the state.

I’m no budding law student, but this is what I take out of the recommended reform:

• It allows warrantless searches of the homes of any police detainees, alongside allowing police to take anything in “plain view” during a raid, without specifying it beforehand.
• It takes away the right to refuse to participate in one’s own criminal investigation, as police could apply for orders which force the surrender of documents and compulsory questioning. This is akin to taking away the age-old right to silence.
• It would create “residual warrants” which allow state agencies to use any new surveillance technology, even if there hasn’t been enough time for parliament to create guidelines.
• Under this bill, ongoing surveillance is treated as if it was same thing as a one-off search.

One sizeable qualm is that the bill extends these powers to 70 state agencies. Some commentators have noted these rights should not be granted to the police, let alone agencies such as WINZ and the Pork Board (of all places).

This bill should totally worry you if you like protests and/or social movements for environmental or climate action. The Human Rights Commission has voiced concerns that removing the right to silence could be used to target political activists or union leaders falsely accused of minor charges. So if you were suspected of organising some sort of civil disobedience then it would be completely within the police’s rights to rifle through your emails.

Those who support the reformed bill say that it merely sets down procedures regarding presently unregulated powers. Besides being blatantly untrue, this only highlights an existing problem: that the public has no idea of the current limits powers of search and surveillance. This is not good. Not good in the realm of “I can’t tell what type of meat I’m eating in my vegetarian lasagne.”

It seems that state power is creeping, privacy is being eroded, 1984 allegories abound. It’s all a tad worrying. Wouldn’t it be nice to think that Aotearoa was all about protecting our freedoms and rights? One freedom that many New Zealanders will doubtlessly use in the coming months is organising or participating in large protests about mining. 

If you’re interested, there are groups across the country organising against the Search and Surveillance Bill, you can find out more details at
http://stopthebillnow.blogspot.com/.

The Search and Surveillance Bill is a prime example of how we sometimes need to protect social freedoms to protect the environment. Here we have social justice and environmental justice interminably linked in a delicious sherry-soaked trifle allegory. Bon Appétit!

Let’s say we have a rainforest; a big lush rainforest, full of shiny plate-sized leaves and bright parrots who rival Lady Gaga in dress code. There’s one group of people who have lived in this rainforest for thousands of years. It’s their supermarket, office, home, church and playground.

 
There’s also a group of newer people who are cutting down the rainforest to plant corn. Maybe they want to be rich, maybe they just want to eat the corn. This deforestation will threaten species living in our rainforest’s ecosystem and the initial group’s livelihoods and culture. Land-use conversion from forest to agriculture will also contribute to climate change when the carbon stored in the trees is emitted into the atmosphere.
 
Now imagine you’re an environmentalist. Maybe you have a beard and wear polar fleece on an everyday basis. What do you do about the rainforest? Historically you’d grab a fat red vivid and circle an area on a map. Then you’d try to kick everyone out of that area, including the indigenous people. You’d put in fences and guards and you’d arrest or injure poachers attempting to harvest food and supplies.
 
Here we wake up sticky and dehydrated, feeling ominous dread about something we can’t quite remember. Did we drink too many colonialist gin and tonics last night?
 
It’s amazing how many people think removing all people is the ultimate method of slowing extinctions and deforestation. I’m not sure why this hypothetical polar fleece-clad environmentalist even gets to decide. If someone must, then perhaps it should be those who have lived in the rainforest for thousands of years. If they want to plant corn, it’s their decision. We can’t dictate, after destroying our own backyards, that all other gardens should be protected forever in their picket-fence glory. Our imperialist hangover is both embarrassing and unjust.
 
Personally, I’m uncertain how to navigate the waters of indigenous rights. Growing up pakeha in Dunedin, I had friends whose grandparents were from China, friends born in Sri Lanka and Somalia, friends who spoke with accents and in different languages, but apart from ‘Tutira mai nga iwi’ and biannual trips to the museum, my childhood was relatively devoid of influences from indigenous Aotearoa. But I can still make the links between indigenous people’s struggles and environmental or climate struggles. These social and ecological crises appear to stem from the same root problem: western economic and social systems.
 
There are alternatives. Last week the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was held in Bolivia. In reaction to the disastrous Copenhagen talks which occurred last December, Bolivia asked governments, organisations and individuals to join their super-posse in finding just climate change solutions. The focus was on learning and sharing with global movements to show solidarity and develop alternative measures. It sounds like a luxurious eco-holiday compared with Copenhagen, where the G77 countries were largely ignored. To add a kick in the teeth to a metaphorical mugging, the US recently announced that they would not give climate aid to the countries which had opposed the Copenhagen Accord. Not cool.
 
Miles away from Bolivia, the New Zealand government has finally agreed to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This should have been a big deal. New Zealand had been one of four countries to reject the declaration when it was adopted by the UN in 2007. Apparently the then-Labour government thought something amiss with recognising the rights of indigenous people to self-determination, to maintain their own languages and cultures, to protect their natural and cultural heritage and manage their own affairs.

John Key called the signing “symbolic”, i.e., it doesn’t really mean anything. Apparently the National Government will let people know areas where it won’t follow the declaration. It’s not legally binding, so who cares.

If the goal is to appear like New Zealand is doing something while it’s actually doing nothing (or alternatively, making it worse), then we’re right on track.

Either you’re the type of person who goes to protests or you’re the type of person who doesn’t. It shouldn’t be this way, but the common conception remains starkly separated: people who leap at any chance to pull pithy placards out from under their bed; and those who have never, ever gotten high on paint fumes as they finish off the final flourishes on protest banners at 2am.

The former is not necessarily any more virtuous than the latter. Protesting can become a habit. Everyone has something they believe strongly in—whether it’s a cause, opinion or simply a strong belief that one should use correct grammar when one text messages. Okay, maybe you’re new to it, or you don’t think it can change anything, or perhaps there’s no grammatical activist group in your hood. Never fear activist-virgins, there will be many opportunities to pop your protest cherries in the coming months.

Of course, there will always be protests that I personally think are absolutely ridiculous. Tamaki’s ‘Enough is Enough’ march, for instance. But, no matter how imbecilic, it’s incredibly important that they can protest. That I can protest. That you can protest.

In the past few weeks I’ve attended two demonstrations that tie into New Zealand’s questionable status as ‘100% Pure’. The first occasion was an anti-mining march, which gathered 500 peeps together outside parliament, telling the National Party not to mine our conservation taonga. The second was outside the inaugural Global Research Alliance (GRA) meeting on the 7th April.

“What’s this?” you say. “What is this Global Research Alliance? I’ve never heard of it.” I’m not surprised. The GRA was formed out of the disastrous Copenhagen talks last December, led by our own oh-so-environmental National government. The alliance aims to “produce more food with fewer emissions,” which sounds all very well in theory, but will surely prove to be more ominous in practice.

The reduction of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t immediately sound like enticing chit-chat, but it’s actually a fascinating and dangerous topic. The agricultural sector contributes up to 30 per cent of emissions worldwide, while in beautiful Aotearoa they equal almost half of our greenhouse gas output. Virtually all other countries with similar agricultural contributions are classed as ‘developing’, which means New Zealand is all set to lead the world in ‘efficient’ agriculture. Efficiency may sound good, but in reality we’re talkin’ intensified production and higher yields, creating more pressure on the environment and not even reducing absolute emissions.

That last point is important. If methane output is reduced per food unit then total emissions can still rise as need for food increases with growing global population. The world will almost certainly need more food in the future, but perhaps it is prudent to start with redistributing what we’ve already got. Tackling huge inequities, extreme wastefulness and over-consumption of meat and dairy would be a good place to start.

It looks like the GRA will be encouraging developing countries to use intensive agriculture instead of small-scale farming. This land-use change will most likely increase agricultural emissions, as small-scale sustainable farms have been shown to very effectively sequester carbon in the soil. GRA globalisation will threaten the livelihoods and food sovereignty of local and indigenous peoples (food sovereignty means being able to decide your own food systems rather than relying on international market forces). The GRA may also endorse genetic modification, as GM is a clear-cut way for the big guns to capitalise crisis.

There were many reasons to protest outside Te Papa on the 7th April. The outcomes of the GRA process are likely to be false solutions to climate change, ‘solutions’ which look like powerful people are trying to stop climate change, when they’re really not trying at all. In this case, as in many, it seems to me that protesting is not just a right, it’s an obligation. An obligation to those who can’t protest, whether by means of geography or a simple desire not to be beaten and/or imprisoned indefinitely.

So, I’ll see you at the next applicable protest; we can exchange witticisms about our carefully painted placards as we chant rhyming couplets. C’mon, you can wear shoes, even a suit, and still stand up for what you believe in.  

Oh, New Zealand, land of both the long white cloud and mined national parks. Can I get a side serving of potential pro-whaling and pathetic floundering in international climate talks? Holla.

You’d think Aotearoa, having truckloads of endangered creatures, would be leading the game in protecting species at risk. Not true. Your mistake would be akin to saying Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a fine piece of film. On the contrary: currently New Zealand is trying to catch more of a critically endangered species, despite stocks of this particular fish being at an all-time low.

The species in question is the magnificent southern bluefin tuna. All streamlined curves and weighing up to 450kg, this gorgeous fish is the sexy Salma Hayek of the piscean world. We’re not talking about canned tuna here; this is not the kind that you stir into your cheesy pasta bake on Tuesday nights. This is top-end, fancy pants tuna. If normal tuna is Double Brown beer, Bluefin would be the equivalent of Emersons. Seafood markets and classy sushi restaurants revere these animals, and a single fish can fetch a price higher than three medical students’ loans put together.

The cousin of the southern bluefin, the Atlantic bluefin, is also super rare. There’s a big endangered species convention going on right now (until the 25th March) where 175 nations will decide whether, among the usual crusades for saving elephants and polar bears, to put a worldwide ban on Atlantic bluefin into place. Apparently it’s going to be a close fight to save this fish, as Australia and Japan remain strongly opposed, despite the EU and the US backing the proposal. Japanese fish-brokers have been quoted saying things like “This is like telling the US to stop eating beef.” Man, do I ever wish I could tell the US to stop eating beef. There’s a challenge for a rainy day.

While the US and EU are standing up for sustainability, our ‘100% Pure’ country has devious plans to increase our total allowable catch on Southern Bluefin Tuna. Overall, the southern bluefin fisheries have an inadequate aim of cutting fishing by 20 per cent annually, but New Zealand doesn’t care. We want more tuna, despite the species’ levels having dropped to 5 per cent of what they were. Let’s keep fishing even if the stock has completely collapsed. We want profit at whatever cost.

Really, we should be stopping southern bluefin tuna completely in its tracks. We need an international ban so that Southern Bluefin Tuna can recover from years of over-fishing.

Allow me to tangent briefly.  You know who really annoy me? Pescatarians—‘vegetarians’ who still eat fish. Some do it for health reasons, some only disdain eating food with faces, but it makes no sense. Overfishing is one of the biggest impact humans have had on the planet. Yes, please eat your self-caught trout, but don’t support industrial scale fishing operations or farmed fish.

Bluefin tuna is just one issue in a long line. Patagonian toothfish has just been put onto New Zealand Quota Management System, even though it’s now not being stocked by eight of Canada’s main supermarket chains. Internationally, New Zealand is increasingly being seen in a new light, a red light, perhaps infused with fish blood? We’re not keeping our jandal-clad feet up to speed with the rest of the world.

What’s happening to tuna is simply symbolic of an extensive decline in international fish stocks. We are devastating the oceans. Everything is definitely not better down where it’s wetter, under the sea.

The National Party hates whales.

Okay, maybe they don’t actually hate whales. Not in the way that I hate banana-flavoured milk, or, alternatively, your face. But the National Party does appear to be encouraging the slaughter of large sea mammals by saying that they’ll seek a “compromise” on whaling.

It all went down after International Whaling Commission (IWC) discussions a couple of weekends ago (here I imagine men with large walrus moustaches, ice encrusted on their eyelashes, sitting at a round table in furs, smoking pipes and chewing seal blubber). At this specific talk there was a hefty proposal on the table, one which would allow Japan, Iceland and Norway to hunt whales, openly, perhaps while waving banners and proclaiming loudly over megaphones that “all whales must die. I repeat: all whales must die”.

The IWC was originally set up in 1946 to ensure sustainable harvesting for development of the whaling industry. However, it soon became clear that commercial whaling was completely out of line for whale survival. In 1986 a total moratorium on commercial whaling was put into place. But rules have never stopped anyone, and at the moment all three of the above mentioned countries do hunt whales: Japan under the “for scientific research” loophole, while Norway and Iceland have simply “lodged objections” to international decisions, and happily continue to kill these large cetacean mammals.

The deal that’s currently on the blubber-strewn table would mean that ‘scientific whaling’ would be controlled by the IWC. The Japanese government would have to comply with sample monitoring and data collection, possibly meaning that less ‘scientific’ whale meat would be bundled into suitcases and sold on the black market. The compromise would also apparently ensure that total whale catch would be reduced over the next decade.

Legalising commercial whaling to stop commercial whaling, oh it all makes total sense.

Contrary to my aggressive opening statement, the National Government has said that they want commercial whaling stopped. But they’re all for reducing whale counts through diplomatic process, not by actually reducing counts. Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has said that any deal would have to be “very attractive” to get New Zealand’s support. As he waits imminent wooing, McCully assures us that “we will obviously tell New Zealanders what’s on the table and seek their views”.

On the other side of the Tasman Sea, where people have higher salaries and there are cool dangerous animals, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that he’ll drag Japan to the International Court of Justice if a diplomatic solution is not reached. Australia wants whaling phased out in five years. However, Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown said it looked like both New Zealand and Australia would succumb and sign up to commercial whaling, despite what the people want.

We’ll just have to wait and see, but in the meantime New Zealand isn’t looking that whale-friendly. New Zealand should be on the frontline, protecting the whales, speaking the voice of its people and protecting its image.

Whales are still where it’s at, just ask the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Despite the multitude of creatures at risk because of the human-caused ‘biodiversity crisis’, whales are still core ‘flagship’ species: getting all the awareness, getting the street cred on posters, the Snoop Dogg of the animal world.

Charismatic megafauna (the cute, large and cuddly) should be easy to protect. If we can’t save them from imminent calamity then it doesn’t look good for the rest of our zoological gang.

Farming is part of our cultural heritage. Personally I wouldn’t know, as my agricultural involvement has, until recently, been limited to childhood holidays where riding in the back of a dusty truck with a sheepdog was a thrilling adventure. Swandris, gumboots and early mornings have never really been my thing. Despite this minimal agricultural aptitude, it’s obvious to me that food production is incredibly important. No golden wedges without potatoes, no delicious cupcakes without wheat. No life without food.

Yes, farming is necessary, but surely we should aim to produce our sustenance in a way that doesn’t mangle the planet. Aotearoa makes a hefty buck from agricultural exports, but hey, it’s also wrecking our country. (Note to farm-raised peeps: I am talking explicitly about large intensive agribusinesses, not small family-owned farms. Please put down your pitchforks.)

Recently, intensive dairy farming has particularly received a lot of flak. This lactose virus has been spreading across the country with a very visible aftermath. In Canterbury one of the most dramatic consequences has been water shortages. Internationally, H2O is a super-important resource, but we in New Zealand love to give out our precious freshwater supplies to dairy farming, the results of which are largely exported.

When I imagine Canterbury I think of long flat southeastern plains, with boy racers nestled between extensive paddocks. Perhaps I also think of high crime rates, but let’s not dwell on that. The land was not always so: a few hundred years ago Canterbury offered a smorgasbord of natural resources to tāngata whenua. One of the items on this resource buffet would have been abundant freshwater. Now agribusiness is the ‘backbone’ of Canterbury. A backbone which is failing the rest of the beast. Canterbury Water Management says “Water is important for everyone in Canterbury,” and that water use should be sustainable and equitable. Oh, whatever. That’s sooo not the way they’ve been walkin’ the walk.

In light of ridiculous past water management, the government launched an investigation in 2009 to review the resource management of Environment Canterbury (ECan). The review panel recently released a report which recommends shutting down the ECan council and creating a new Canterbury Regional Water Authority.

Sounds vaguely boring, yes, but what it really means is, as the Green Party pointed out, there’d be “no democratically elected regional council”. Not only is this obscenely undemocratic, it also means that agribusinesses and dairy will probably have less hassle getting irrigation consents. Not good for ‘pure’ New Zealand.

Our delicious plot thickens when we learn that the review panel was led by former Deputy Prime Minister Wyatt Creech. Creech is the director of a large dairy company which has been fined thousands and successfully prosecuted twice for contaminating Waikato land and rivers. Would anyone like a slice of vested-interest pie?
 
Immediate water issues aside, we need to question whether we want the backbone of Canterbury to be intensive industrial farming. A backbone which pushes our natural resources to the limit and is unjust to present and future generations. A backbone which focuses on short-term gains to the economy.  Instead, why don’t we focus on sustainable community-orientated food production and sustainable profits. Let’s not focus on a backbone that dismays elderly Dutch couples in camper vans as they scan for green pristine paddocks but find only dirty rivers and dry parched land. At this moment we may be making Dutch senior citizens cry salty tears of disappointment onto their Cantabrian lamingtons.
 

Right now, far across the world, a sophisticated Swedish woman with an immaculate coiffure is sipping her fair-trade espresso and excitedly planning an expedition to the Land of the Long White Cloud. This woman is one of our nations’ many would-be tourists, a diverse and intrepid crowd on the whole. She wholeheartedly enjoys wearing brightly coloured Gore-Tex and plummeting down dangerous rivers on glorified inflated cushions.

 
Our imagined Swedish femme fatale is a budding adventurer in pursuit of “authentic experiences”, lured here by the promise of 100% Pure New Zealand. You know, the international branding of our… um, “slice of heaven”.
 
The first uniform branding of Aotearoa, 100% Pure last year celebrated its tenth birthday. It has been a very successful decade; since 1999 the brand has stimulated a 50% increase in tourists visiting our fair islands.
 
While marketeers are clapping each other on the back and going round the pub for a few (dozen) celebratory beers, the rest of us can ask: are we really 100 per cent pure?
 
100% Pure conjures up waterfalls, endless beaches, pristine alpine peaks, small brown grinning children and frolicking lambs. Maybe with some added images of whale riding and comedic musical duos, fat flightless birds and, occasionally, rings to rule them all.
 
Impressions that don’t immediately spring to mind include: New Zealand lagging far behind on greenhouse gas emissions targets; the fact that our lowland rivers are unswimmable; mining in national parks; that the fluffy little lambs decorating our utopian postcards are rapidly being discarded, like so many BigMac wrappers, in favour of large dairy herds.
 
Interestingly, the 100% Pure brand wasn’t originally designed to convey any eco-friendly message, but there is no doubt in these eco-literate times that it does. Even Tourism New Zealand recognises this, and past Chief Executive George Hickton has said “it’s crucial that we protect and improve this image”. Yup, that’s right, if our clean, green image is demolished then it’s not only our tourist dollars at risk, it’s also our export industry. Serious stuff, eh.

Personally, I would love all of Aotearoa to look like the ads, albeit with a few less fluoro parkas. We have a choice as to whether we proudly stand up to the international hype and protect our untarnished image, or whether we let it topple and fall in the pesticide-tainted mud. Do we want groups of eager German tourists wandering our streets, incredulously asking “but vair is zee forest?” I think not.
 
Each week I’ll be focusing on a different facet of pure New Zealand: how we live up to the branding, how we don’t, how we could make it better. Join me in the quest to discover to the extent to which we are deceiving stylish Swedish women, and how we can stop it.
 
George Hickton states that 100% Pure is “a promise that we believe the country can and should live up to”. Agreed, George, agreed. What about you, Mr Key?