Brent Barrett’s Home Planet: Wild kiwi egg fitting way to celebrate 100 years of Forest & Bird

We can succeed when we choose to restore our most treasured natural places and endangered species, such as the North Island brown kiwi. Photo / Andrew Walmsley

OPINION:

Almost beyond belief, news of a wild kiwi egg laid in the Wellington hills. What an inspired start to a new year. Proof we can succeed when we choose to restore our most treasured natural places and endangered species.

The timing of this new egg makes it even more special. Exactly 100 years ago, servicemen home from the horrors of World War I noticed the loss of bush and birdlife right under their noses here in Aotearoa. Places like Kāpiti Island were being devastated by grazing, pests and predators. Nationally there was no legal means to properly protect birds or slow the constant press of tree fellers into our old-growth rainforests.

These soldiers, being men of action, created the first nationwide wildlife conservation organisation, what is today the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society. Eventually, local Forest & Bird groups sprung up, including in Manawatū in the 1950s. Its first meeting was in a barrister’s office overlooking Te Marae o Hine.

Many more like-minded advocacy groups sprung up in the 1960s and the years since, as books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revealed a new environmental crisis directly linked to technology and power.

Together, these environmental groups have made massive contributions to the nation we are today. Saving native birds from the brink of extinction, protecting threatened habitats, and bringing the joys and value of a healthy natural environment into the heart of our national identity.

Today, New Zealand is world famous for our island home’s spectacular natural places and unique plants and animals. It’s at the heart of what makes us a coveted tourist destination and a great place to live in tune with nature. So it’s wonderful that in this moment, 100 years since the modern conservation movement sprouted, we hear news of a wild egg of the most precious type. A stroppy wild kiwi, tending new life somewhere in the rugged hills above Wellington, creating the possibility of the first kiwi birth there in more than 150 years. Simply wild.

Of course, the roots of our healthy connections with nature go back well over 100 years. We are all the richer for mana whenua’s ethos of kaitiakitanga being infused through history, and strengthening today. Bringing Aotearoa’s first people’s voice to the fore of environmental protection bodes well for protecting and revitalising nature in the years ahead.

I reckon this wild kiwi egg is an inspiration, as we look to new challenges in protecting nature and the very life systems we depend on. Today’s issues are complex and global, yet have intensely local and personal effects. Microplastics, persistent poisons, freshwater pollution and the climate crisis; all driven by our choice to hotly pursue endless economic growth, creating the perfect storm here in Aotearoa and globally.

We can look back with pride on those young visionaries who stood up in 1923, starting a movement that saved forests and birds and bits of oceans and mountains and rivers for us all to enjoy.

Today, we can honour their legacy and create our own by stepping up and meeting the new environmental challenges so that in 100 years our children’s children look back and recognise this moment. The moment we took action stabilising and returning greenhouse gas concentrations to a safe level, the moment we got harmful plastics and poisons under control, the moment we moved beyond blindly chasing endless growth.

It’s 2023. For the first time in 150 years, new life stirs in a kiwi’s wild egg near Wellington, pointing to a year ahead bursting with opportunity. Let’s make the most of it!

• Brent Barrett is an environmental advocate, Green city councillor and scientist. The views expressed here are his own.