Healing my history

Six years from my rude awakening to the climate crisis and on the constantly evolving journey into 'Wokefullness', I find myself finally settling down. I'm in the nerve wracking roller coaster of buying a very rural piece of whenua (land).

My Burmese awakening (Sept 2014)

With 45% deposit of a $455,000 (NZD) 80 acre property, that has good soil, springs and a consented 3 bedroom house, I was really surprised how hard it was to find a lender. It has astounded me that even with my privilege of being a sis pakeha (white) woman, with no children and no debts (not even a credit card!), that it was so difficult. How can others do it?

Colonial guilt has been the constant white noise of my emotions for years and has lead me to want to provide a space, empowerment and guidance to others wanting to change themselves or help in the wider sustainability movement.

My Family's Farm

My great-grandfather bought land in Tatuanui, Waikato (New Zealand) around 1910, which had only a few decades before been taken from the Tangata Whenua (indigenous Maori people) during a war started by pakeha because the Tangata Whenua in this area, had not wanted to sell them more land, realising it was undermining their sovereignty (King, 1982).

My family never talked about where the land came from. We just celebrated the hard work great-grandad and his brother put into clearing the land of trees. It became the Rushton dairy farm, winning awards that were talked about by our family as bed-time stories (see the below rendition I did of a well know family story).

I have had to rethink this pride in my history.

Waikato waterways are now one of the most polluted areas in New Zealand (p. 33) because

of Dairy. Dairy contributes the most to global warming and we now know stripping land of it's native trees to farm was a terrible idea. New Zealand, pristine less then 200 years ago, is now one of the most deforested countries in the world.

Dead eels from this weeks blooms. Photo: Eowyn Starr

Just this week climate change and farming pollution collided, with the long drought, increasing algae and bacterial blooms in Waikato waterways. Thousands of native and protected species of birds and fish have died in what a Fish and Game manager stated as being "...one of the worst environmental issues or disasters that we've seen..." (Klee as quoted by NewsHub, 5th March 2020).

Hind sight, ethical awareness movements and science means we can hopefully avoid most people doing the same in future. My family never meant to do harm.

So here I am. Buying a farm to restore and use to empower Tangata Whenua if I can and to try bring people back in touch with living within our planetary boundaries.

It will be interesting to know if this starts to ease my colonial and consumer culture guilt. I am going to be watching a series on Pakeha in New Zealand and tackling their colonial guilt, which is free to access here (possibly only for NZer's). So watch/read/listen to this space to see how I get on.

Clamping together the frame of an earthship roof in 2013

Along the way I hope to show you my journey into permaculture, food forests, eco-houses, tiny houses, alternative energies, compost toilets, healthy sustainable food and recipes, my Masters project on educating health professionals on the importance of our community reducing red meat intake, a project to house activists, a project to allow sexually abused women to have a space to come and heal away from men and eco-tourism to help fund the projects. If any of that interests you, follow me on Facebook, Youtube or find my podcasts for developments.

References

King, M. (1982). Tu Puea. Hodder and stoughton: Auckland. ISBN 0 340 320206