New Zealand Environmentalism

Rotorua zip line, North Island, New Zealand.

You don’t usually expect to find a national celebrity walking casually down the street, much less doing so barefoot. Yet that is exactly how I once encountered the New Zealand film director Peter Jackson, wandering through Wellington without any shoes on. In most cities this would be madness: the combination of discarded cigarette butts, chewing gum, and broken glass would make the idea a nonstarter. But in New Zealand the streets are spotless, part of a national culture that puts the outdoors and the natural environment first.

In fact it was Jackson, through his Lord of the Rings trilogy, who helped fix the image of New Zealand as a land of outdoor wonder in the global mind. Filmed in New Zealand and showing off the country’s extraordinary scenery, from green vistas to snow-topped mountains and luscious rivers, the films helped spark a visitor boom that meant the country’s tourism industry doubled in size in the years that followed. It helped inspire the “green and clean” slogan that became the foundation of how New Zealand promoted itself to the world.

It was a good marketing slogan and, like the best, based on a substantial truth. For the strength of the environment in New Zealand is not just its compelling scenery, but also the deep commitment that people show to supporting and maintaining the rich natural world that surrounds them. In a 2017 survey of nine thousand New Zealanders, the environment came tied for first among the characteristics considered as “defining” to the nation, averaging 9.1 out of 10, the same score as “freedom, rights, and peace.”

New Zealanders don’t just talk about loving their environment; they look after it too. As part of their keen awareness of minimizing pollution, New Zealanders hold annual, nationwide clean-up efforts for seas, rivers, and forests. The social enterprise Keep New Zealand Beautiful estimates that it rallied almost eighty thousand volunteers during 2017, removing over 100 kilograms of litter. The environment is at the heart of political campaigning too: after Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, three friends from Christchurch began a crowdfunding campaign to plant “a global forest to offset Trump’s monumental stupidity.” Within a year, they had raised enough money to plant over a million trees.

For both city-dwellers and rural inhabitants, the outdoors is a shared space and a focal point of Kiwi life. From family trips to summer holidays, New Zealanders are more likely to head to the countryside than hop on a plane: hiking, camping, or barbecuing. Wherever you live, you are almost guaranteed to be just a short drive away from immersing yourself in the outdoors, whether your preference is forest, beach, or mountain. I found something magical about throwing myself into New Zealand’s extraordinary natural world: from bungee jumping and zip lining to seeing volcano craters of many colors and stunning hot springs. There is a vividness and a vibrancy that speaks of a nation defined by its nature.

But New Zealand’s commitment to the environment goes far beyond a widespread preference for spending time outdoors. It’s also present in the country’s rapid transition to clean energy, with 90 percent of its energy supply set to be renewable by 2025 (it was already at 82 percent as of 2017). The International Energy Agency (IEA) has praised New Zealand for being a “world class success story for renewables.”

While much of the focus on the environment looks toward the future, and creating a nation that can truly wear the title of “green and clean,” the national emphasis on the outdoors has much deeper roots, as one of the centerpieces of the indigenous Maori culture.

In Maori tradition, Papatuanuku (Mother Earth) is a central figure, said to be the source of all living things, and the force that continues to sustain all life. Maori deities descended from her almost all have a connection to nature: there are gods of forests and birds; fresh water; the ocean; fish; cultivated plants; the weather; and sharks, lizards, and rays.

For Maoris, the connection with all-powerful nature is fundamental, a part of te ao Maori (the Maori worldview) and something that begins at birth. For some, the tradition is for the placenta (whenua—also the Maori word for “land”) to be buried on ancestral land, returning it to Papatuanuku, the original mother.

Many Maori also see themselves as kaitiaki (guardians) of New Zealand’s land, sea, and sky, especially as the environment increasingly comes under threat. According to the New Zealand government, almost half of the Maori economy is vested in climate-sensitive industries from forestry to fisheries, agriculture, and tourism. A number of Maori rights concerning the natural environment and their stewardship over it are enshrined in New Zealand law. But recently, Maori communities have been seeking legal action against the government, which in its view has not done enough to limit carbon emissions and environmental damage.

They are not the only ones who question if New Zealand is doing enough to live up to its “green and clean” promise. In 2017, the OECD questioned if the country’s fast-growing agriculture sector (especially in areas such as intensive dairy farming) is undermining its attempts to limit climate change. The focus on agriculture “may indicate that New Zealand’s strong growth has come partly at the expense of environmental quality, a dynamic that puts the country’s ‘green’ reputation at risk,” its report commented.

Like any country, New Zealand faces its challenges when it comes to climate change. But as the natural world comes under increasing threat, New Zealand also symbolizes the importance of the environment: its role as a source of life, inspiration, and creativity; something that is truly worth fighting for.