Reckless and regressive Government policies will leave a “train wreck for future generations to deal with,” hundreds of people at a Napier demonstration were told today. (Sunday July 28)

The Papatūānuku Rising event wasn't just to speak out against reckless policies but to speak up for nature, Hastings environmentalist Marilyn Scott told the crowd.

The march through Napier's city centre, which stretched the length of Emerson Street from Memorial Square to Dickens Street, was organised by a group of Māori and Pākehā dismayed at the government’s attack on nature, particularly through its proposed Fast Track Bill and also its numerous attempts to undermine Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Reo Māori.

Organisers estimate between 400 and 500 people took part.

Scott quoted a Māori whakatauki: Whatungarongaro te tangata, Toitu te whenua - People may disappear but the land will remain.

“In case we have forgotten, our planet is 4.6 billion years old, and we humans have only been here for about 300,000 years. If we scale that 4.6 billion years to 46 years - human beings have only been here for 4 hours.

“Yet in that time we have managed to destroy more than 50% of the world’s forests - not to mention our ongoing pollution and exploitation of the rivers and oceans.

“How we are living now is not sustainable!”

The good-natured event began with speakers and music at Memorial Square at 1pm before the crowd marched up Emerson Street to the Soundshell on Marine Parade.

Speakers included Nick Ratcliffe from Ceasefire Now HB and Kerri Nuku, Kaiwhakahaere for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation.

Hastings-raised, Ōtaki-based environmental researcher Wilson Pearse (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Raukawa, Rangitāne) told the crowd at M Memorial Squate that “an assault on nature is an assault on Māori and an assault on Māori is an assault on Nature”.

Humans had made nature their worst enemy, Pearse said.

“It is our responsibility to ensure we are using natural resources in the most efficient, environment centric way possible. Prioritising the health of land and water to ensure the longevity our natural processes and the reliance of food and fibre production on these, rehabilitating land so when storms come through local economies aren’t ravaged. So that when droughts occur, our aquifer is so plentiful that farmers aren’t forking out of tight budgets to bring in additional feed. Encouraging public transport over personal vehicles and making it not only a viable transport option but the most efficient way to move around our beautiful country. Getting freight off of state highways and back onto a rail system. Prioritising our collective well-being in all manners possible over the demands of corporate bodies and lobbyists. Allowing us as Māori to care for tangata tiriti, for tauiwi the way our tikanga expects us to.

“We’ve destroyed the ngāhere, and replaced it with exotic plants which acidify the land. Rivers across the country are turned into speedways to remove water from land as quickly as possible, the water we need to replenish aquifers, streams. Wetlands, which capture and clean both man-made and natural contaminants have been drained and replaced with pasture, orchards, housing, critical infrastructure.

“Yet we have the audacity to complain when nature takes retribution, and then instead of working with those systems we reinforce this weird mentality of fighting against nature. When stop banks fail the economic fallout is catastrophic, the lives of our peers, friends, families is at risk. Cyclone Gabrielle has cost the Hawke’s Bay more than $2 billion dollars and the lives of 12 New Zealanders.

“And all of these relationships continue to worsen with the demands of this government to strengthen our economy, weakening the already dated environmental legislation we do have, disregarding the conservation act, disregarding the reserves act, shitting on every single Treaty Settlement Act enacted since the opening of the Waitangi Tribunal.”

Pearse said the Government was not only “robbing us today, they are robbing us of our future, they are robbing us of our rangatahi Māori”.

“Cutting public transport subsidies, cutting funding for lunches in schools increases household costs. David Seymour has said he wants programs removed which enable getting Māori into limited courses, programs which aim to balance the material, social, and cultural hardship which rangatahi may have been subjected to. That instead of providing services, additional income, and housing, instead of rehabilitating young offenders they’d put them into bootcamps which cost $100,000 per child per year. That instead of supporting parents who love and want to provide for their children, they’d uplift Tamariki and cut the provisions that would ensure their cultural needs are considered. This government is gutting the middle class, crushing the lower class, and then stealing our children and funnelling them into the system. Every child lost to state care, every rangatahi put into the justice system is a future stolen. Every child lost to those systems reduces our ability as Māori to ensure we build a future that everyone living in New Zealand deserves.

“But as I look out today at all of those gathered here today. I see tangata whenua! I see tangata tiriti, whether you’re the first generation or the fifth, standing here together sharing the dream of brighter future for all, a future my tūpuna was promised was he signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Here today are the beginnings of community. Community which enables to support one another, whether it is sharing kai, helping someone make their first vege garden or learning how to compost. Whether it is finding people to carpool with if public transport is under funded. This community right here is just the beginning. The beginning of a community conscious of the needs of our taiao, the needs of our people, and empowering tangata whenua to make right our relationships with whenua so that everyone in Aotearoa can live the in a world our tūpuna promised, and that we all dream of.”

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