Kauri Dieback: literal disease, social metaphor, and the lessons of Northland

Literal Disease

The kauri tree (agathis australis) is native to the northernmost regions of the North Island, including the Coromandel Peninsula, Auckland region, and Northland. The kauri was once at the heart of a huge timber and gum industry. During the first wave of European settlement in New Zealand, kauri trees were felled at an incredible rate for export overseas and for domestic use. They were primarily used in building construction and ship building.

The kauri tree, or agathis australis, a northern North Island native.

Kauri gum was used by Europeans to make materials like linoleum, varnish, marine glue, and could be used as a fire-starter. It was also used to make decorative items. Such was the reputation of the kauri that my great-great grandfather, William Napier, a Northern Irish forester, came to New Zealand not so much to visit two of his daughters who moved there, but to gape and gawk at the improbably huge and ancient kauris in the dying days of the industry. During my trips to Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula, I walked in his footsteps through kauri forests, absolutely staggered by their immense trunks of flaking bark and oddly delicate, spreading crowns of green, with elegant leaves and twisting branches reaching skyward.

Mystical and glorious crown of the kauri.

The kauris were all but decimated through intensive logging throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, and the native bush was irreparably altered through rudimentary forestry practices.

"Damn big bloody tree, Gavin, what!"
"Yes, yes, Bruce, chop it down I say, capital, capital! HM's Navy is in for a treat!" 

When the viability of the kauri industry waned due to diminishing resources, northern settlers turned to agriculture, and almost simultaneous with their conception in the late 1920s, the first CAT tractor arrived, changing the landscape of the northern North Island for all time. Kauri trees are not suitable for sustainable forestry because of their incredibly slow growth rate. It takes hundreds of years for a Kauri to mature and reach its grand stature. Only a few Kauri stands are left in protected forest parks and in selected zones, as for example in the Waipoua Forest, the Trounson Kauri Park, and in the Coromandel. Tane Mahuta, or the Lord of the Forest, in the Waipoua Forest along the Kauri Coast, is certainly the most famous of the standing kauris due to its age and size. At over a millenium old, Tane Mahuta is a staggering salute to the efforts of Mother Nature in the southern hemisphere.

Tane Mahuta.

Yours truly on a sparring date with the Lord of the Forest.

A trip to the Kauri Museum in Matakohe reveals the depth of importance the kauri had in the early New Zealand economy, and the lengths that the early colonial settlers went to in exploiting the resource. Extreme hardship often accompanied the life of the "gumdigger" and the lumberjack, whose life in the New Zealand bush was far less comfortable than that of his counterpart in the Canadian forests during the same period. In addition to logging, kauris were "bled" for their sap like a maple tree, but this was extracted at a huge and at first unknown cost. The tapped kauri, unlike the maple tree, certainly died of its wounds. After a time, this method was played out and fortune-hunters moved on to gumdigging: looking for lumps of kauri gum in the soil. This was not the work of the well-to-do, or by all accounts, the well-adjusted. Had you bottomed out in every other respect in your bid to settle in early colonial New Zealand, you might go off and become a gumdigger, who, like the California gold-digger, was high on chance and often low on fortune. Eventually the gum industry subsided.

The kauri tree has been reinvented as an important aspect of the New Zealand economy, providing revenue to the northern region through tourism, and kauri woodworking and carpentry. The kauri wood used for craft activities is reclaimed from the land. It's called "swamp kauri", and is rescued from still-extensive deposits underground and in mudflats. Gum, still found in moderate quantities, is made into jewellery and other decorative items.

In 2008 Kauri dieback appeared. It is a fungal disease killing off kauris. The race is on to control the spread of the disease before it destroys what kauris remain. Despite the massive size of the kauri, the strength of its wood, and its seeming impenetrability, its roots are so shallow and so vulnerable at soil-level that even a passer-by with infected soil or spores clinging to his shoes can be a messenger of doom for a forest of trees. The Department of Conservation has therefore set up stations for cleaning shoes and boots at the entrance of the Waipoua Kauri Forest and the Trounson Kauri Park. Kiwis and tourists alike are dutifully spraying their shoes and carefully keeping to the path in order to preserve the majestic trees and their precarious but flourishing root systems.

A different kind of spray n' wipe.

Social Metaphor 

2008/9 was also the start of New Zealand suffering a kind of "dieback" disease of its own. The widening gulf between rich and poor in NZ, kick-started in the 1980s, became radically entrenched over the years and has increased in the period beginning with the economic crisis of 2009. Poverty is on the rise. It is a struggle for most families to make ends meet, and for those who are unable to secure full-time employment or high-paying jobs, the prospects are bleak. 

New Zealand is in the top four of the most inequitable societies in the world based on income in relation to health and social issues. For a country of only four million people spread over a land mass the size of the United Kingdom, it does not take much hard work to realise that mismanagement and misallocation of available resources, a lack of infrastructure, poor urban planning, incoherent social and economic policies, and uneven wealth distribution (including property ownership) is to blame. New Zealand's delicate roots, very much exposed, are being destroyed.

 If self-righteous, moralizing finger-pointing were a competitive sport, New Zealanders would win hands-down. Recent government initiatives and public attitude would suggest that the poor in New Zealand are to be blamed for the lion's share of the country's social ills, and are blamed for not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" the way white, middle and upper class New Zealanders have done for generations. These same Kiwis, living quite comfortably by most international standards, have a bad habit of crying poor -- another national pastime, and one of the least attractive aspects of the New Zealand (white) national character. Where do the complaints of these Kiwis leave the genuine poor and struggling? Caught up in suspicion and marginalized.

In New Zealand, there is little recognition that poverty and poverty cycles come about because of a lack of resources, lack of access to resources, and lack of social equality. Many well-to-do Kiwis have serious blinders on where it concerns their down-at-heel countrymen. They truly believe, in 2012, that all these people need to do is go out and get a job. Any job. Well if you can't afford to run a car or a mobile (smart) phone, do not have the tertiary education now demanded to answer phones and file papers, and live in a city like Auckland, getting a minimum wage, part-time job will barely stretch to your bus fare, let alone the staggering rent on housing and the cost of food. 

Not long ago I caught a talk show on the radio. A debate was raging (or as raging as a debate can possibly get among Kiwis) on a proposed government initiative to "suggest" women on the "DPB" (a single-parent government benefit) take contraceptives as a way to reduce welfare dependency. The supporting logic had to do with stopping women having kids just so they could go on the benefit. And what? Make their millions? Life the high life? To my mind there seemed to be major holes in that logic, and the proposal it inspired.

Ineptocracy:
 describing the unspoken socio-political leanings of most white , middle-class, fully employed Aucklanders.

Ironically, I've heard the argument many times now, from white, middle-class Aucklanders with steady, well-paid jobs, that the solution to the problem of NZ's precarious economy is to get more population. Of the right sort, no doubt. The supporting logic has to do with a vague understanding of American-style consumerism and the idea of "markets". They believe that lots of people means lots of money--a post-capitalist abstraction to be sure. This manner of thinking is also part of the post-colonial hangover in NZ. The Kiwi media and the Kiwi government continually compare the New Zealand economy with those of the USA, the UK and Australia, as if there were any (even superficial) basis for the comparison, and hold New Zealand and New Zealanders up to impossible standards. Surely Ireland or Norway would provide better comparatives based on population, and better examples could be found by looking at nations that better fit the profile of New Zealand with respect to environment and resources. There is something not only ironic but flat out hilarious in taking the WASPiest markets in the world and saying, "oh yeah, we should be like them!" while taking smug pride in not being American or British or Australian. (Canada obviously remains the Great White Unknown.)

Mismanagement of "human capital" -- let alone cash -- is one of the most confounding hallmarks of the "New New Zealand". New Zealand is already struggling to make use of its immigrants to generate economic results. Or to use their skills for anything other than shop-keeping and bakeries. New Zealand is failing to deal with the four million people it already has. Imagine eight million.

In the absence of a resource base to support all these extra people, a manufacturing base, appropriate infrastructure, places for them to ply their trades outside of a few neighbourhoods in Auckland, a way to invest and spend the money they're theoretically bringing, and jobs with which to make the money they're going to spend on Gavin and Bruce's overpriced knick-knacks to stimulate the dream economy, that plan isn't really going to fly. One guy enthusiastically remarked to me that the UK is the same size as NZ and despite having a population of just under 63 million, "you don't feel crowded in the English countryside". That's ok reasoning, I guess, if you're on holiday at a farmstay B&B or manor home and willing to overlook the UK's own social justice issues or the roots of the idyllic English countryside in late 18th century inner-city workhouses. Incidentally, the UK ranks third among the most inequitable countries in the world with respect to income measured against health and social issues.

Is it not possible for New Zealand to stand on its own two feet? Reinvigorating NZ self-reliance, getting down with the virtues of subsistence, and refusing to keep up with the Joneses would go a long way to the long-term economic health of NZ. As would recognizing the fact it's 2012, distance is a thing of the past, and the "human capital" is already here for "exploitation" as one of New Zealand's best and most viable resources. But New Zealanders resolutely fail to invest where investment is needed, love a bargain because they're normally so busy ripping each other off, and blame any adverse outcome on being so far away, the intractability of the poor, and the "global recession". Even the richest New Zealander would rather live in a house that makes his family ill every winter than fix it up to good standards ... and the poor can eat cake.

At least one socially aware entrepreneur of another kind is giving a boot in the face to such worn-out attitudes: Guy Bibby. Visit AskShareGive and see what I mean.

His economy supports and is driven by social roles for people. He's growing and protecting the roots.

The Lessons of Northland

I travelled Northland for over a month. It reminded me somewhat of the East Coast, particularly East Cape. The ravages of economic depression were obvious. The image of Northland promoted by Aucklanders, particularly the white, middle class sort, is of a dangerous and threatening place, "dark" with Maori, and full of "bludgers" who "don't want to work". The reality is quite different. It is a place that has suffered from the progressive dismantling of local industries, transport infrastructure, and the relocation of industrial and business interests to Auckland.

Sensationalist photojournalistic documentation of a derelict homestead, Northland.

Everywhere I went in Northland, I asked people: What is your vision for Northland? What would you like to see happen here? Hands down the response was to bring back local industries, train lines, and ports. What I saw was the same as I have seen in East Cape and in Auckland for that matter: people who are materially and spiritually diminished because they do not have roles. And I do not mean "roles" as in the euphemistic, HR, business-speak substitute for the word "job". I mean they do not have social roles. They lack a meaningful way to contribute to and to gain a sense of meaning in their own communities. Communities are dying, families are becoming fragmented, and wealth is being dissipated because individuals are forced to move to Auckland (or large towns) if they want to make a go of it in the way New Zealand is currently evolving. As the owner of the Houhora Tavern said, "What are we going to do when the current crop of pine trees is all gone and there's no other industry, and everything has moved to Auckland? Rely on tourism?".

Tourism alone will not sustain Northland (or New Zealand for that matter), nor will turning it into one massive retirement or bach zone for rich Aucklanders and foreigners with a lot of cash to spend on flashy beach homes. SMEs (Small-to-Medium-Enterprises) will not save Northland, because SMEs by their very nature are, in NZ, bids for survival rather than entrepreneurial concerns embracing the latest business practices (of which there is little in NZ anyway).

There is money to be made where you least expect it in Northland.

The people of Northland are survival experts. They are jacks and jills of all trades who, like many in rural New Zealand, will do bits and pieces of anything and everything to get by. They don't have extreme ambitions, except to live life and be well within their families, with proper shelter, food, and clothing. However, these ambitions are beginning to look like dreams, if not fantasies, in a New Zealand that is moving forward with a firm sense of denial as to the possibilities of the twenty-first century, and locked into an American way of doing the Antipodes.

Places like Towai, Hikurangi, and Kawakawa epitomize the problems of rural New Zealand. Towai is essentially a parking lot with a Hotel on the west side of  State Highway 1 towards Cape Reinga. I found it, because having skipped out Northland's interior on my quest for surfable coastline, I felt duty-bound to visit Hikurangi and Kawakawa. Hikurangi was one of the most depressing places I've ever been in NZ. Perhaps rivalled by Tokumaru Bay in East Cape. From what I was told in the Towai tavern by a farmer who owns most of the surrounding land and who drank 3 big bottles of Lion Red in the time it took me to drink a handle of some swill or other, Hikurangi suffered from the Hwy 1 bypass, and the removal of a dairy plant to Auckland. Dairy processing was the major sustaining industry of the town after coal mining bit the dust, and now one can only reach Hikurangi directly from places like Whananaki, the Bay of Islands, and the Tutakaka Coast. Towai, like many struggling Northland areas, suffered closure of the local school and is now a blip on what is rapidly becoming nothing but the tourist road north. In an interesting twist, my farmer pal revealed to me that it was his grandfather's CAT tractor on display in the Kauri museum at Matakohe. His son is at university doing film studies ... but expects to return to the farm.

An education in tractors, motorbikes, and Lion Red by Farmer J.

Kawakawa had a more populous but no less depressing cast, having little to recommend it but a ridiculous set of public toilets made by a nutty Austrian architect. Actually, they're quite funky but it's insane to build a local economy from hopes that tourists will be busting for a pee on the way to Cape Reinga. The real story of Kawakawa lies beneath the streets and on the small gauge train that plies the old railway line from Kawakawa to Opuna. Kawakawa is a defunct coal-mining town and the train used to take the coal up to Opuna for wider distribution. The train is now operating as a tourist attraction, lovingly refurbished and run by a couple who want to see the train once again reach Opuna.

Taumarere ... another stop on the small-gauge track to nowhere

The lovely Kawakawa countryside. "Look Ma, no people! Just like England!"

For me, the real lessons of Northland have to do with maintaining the integrity of communities, families, care of the land, and roles for people that make sense for their environment and a way of life that is different, if for no other reason than because this life is being lived in the roaring 40s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. School schedules and work days don't need to run on stereotypical time-schedules. New Zealand companies have an awesome opportunity to think outside the box when making growth decisions: they have an available labour force but a telecommute away. Overseas businesses could easily locate in non-Auckland region communities. Innovation is happening all the time in circumstances where people have to do for themselves in order to survive, and maybe the government, and other New Zealanders, should take notice. Distance and time can be a serious advantage for NZ in the world of e-communication and e-business. New Zealand could be a leader, rather than a follower, where it comes to addressing its social and economic problems.

My friend B on the Tutukaka Coast.
Photographer, former tramper, DOC bird conservationist, and
vital member of his community. Not sidelined.

When I visited my friend B for the afternoon on the Tutukaka Coast, I was struck by how I could spend hours with someone and walk away having no idea what they did for a "job". No doubt he worked hard at whatever it was. But what B is most proud of, and most eager to share, are the many gorgeous photographs of serious hiking trips through unrelenting landscape in the South Island, and of serious hardship doing voluntary work with the Department of Conservation caring for New Zealand's rarest birds throughout the islands, including the Chathams. These activities were a shared passion with his late wife. As he moves forward in the years after his wife's tragic passing, he still looks to what can be done in his own community, volunteering at local clubs and sitting on local boards. He can't climb mountains or stay up all night tracking nocturnal birds like he used to, but he still has a role to play.

In this "brave new world", no one should have to leave their community and abandon their family to "get a job". That is to spread a dangerous disease, one that the world has already experienced in the form of the Industrial Revolution. New Zealanders are in a unique position to be alert to the opportunities available for growth and preservation its roots: the people and the land.

A parting anecdote from Kauri country: 

I was in a shop in a Coromandel town. I got chatting to the shop owner about how I was hoping to get the job I applied for in the town. She commiserated with me, complaining about how tough it was to keep going "in these economic times" and how she barely made enough sales the day before to pay the staff she hired to cover her day off. She said she may as well have stayed closed. I told her that the part-time job I interviewed for had a high number of applicants, some from as far away as Hamilton, meaning that people were willing to commute more than four hours a day for a part-time job. Man! We shook our heads incredulously. I said, "boy, you think it's bad here, you should see Northland". She responded, "well, some people just don't want to work".

"Really?" I said. "Really?"

And over to you.