Green Party co-leader Russel Norman offers a glimmer of hope for the fencing of waterways and a creeping revegetation.
There are illustrations of developer-scarred hillsides and for-sale signs, badly pruned even mutilated trees, industrial debris, abandoned vehicles, vermin hung from barbed-wire fences and a bird squashed on the road. Hillsides are scored with sheep tracks. Torn plastic is caught in wire and graffiti is scrawled on the earth and on tree trunks destined for pulping. Electricity pylons compromise the views. Roots lie exposed by slips, paddocks are pugged by hooves.
Many of the images are plain ugly, yet others are of a modified landscape we can perceive as beautiful but telling a story of settlers still bush-bashing and breaking in a land to this day. The last photograph is one of a beleaguered pohutukawa well-protected by strong stakes to discourage mindless vandals and wrapped up against the relentless wind on Dunedin's foreshore near Portsmouth Dr. Such civil and uncivil behaviours.
The book would be a useful school resource for educating on issues of sustainable use of Aotearoa and respect for Papa-tu-a-nuku. And it projects a moodiness heavier than its physical dimensions would suggest, dealing with societal issues needing to be addressed.
- Peter Goodwin is a Dunedin subeditor.
