title: Boundaries of absolute protection: distribution of benefit and harm to birds through law and planning in New Zealand

authors: Wallace, Philippa Jane

subjects: Law

abstract: Endemic birds in New Zealand are under threat, and increasingly so, as human activity reshapes the land, reconstitutes the water, consumes space and resources and alters faunal composition. The decline of biodiversity is a pressing concern globally and the unique nature of the endemic fauna of New Zealand provides impetus for concern. 
Examination of the state of birds and analysis of the response of New Zealand law to the agents of decline is the key contribution of this research. The substance and operation of New Zealand law is examined to determine its influence upon the distribution of benefit and burden to New Zealand birds. Six case study birds: the black petrel, dotterel, kokako, godwit, sooty shearwater, and the wrybill are studied to elucidate these matters.
In examining distribution of harm and benefit, a particular focus of the research is upon the degree of care that is applied to protecting birds through the law and related planning instruments. By assessing the principles, criteria and methods applied to protecting birds, the research identifies that an objective of avoidance of harm to indigenous Threatened or At Risk species, their habitats, and ecosystems upon which they depend, will benefit birds. It concludes that conservation status, as opposed to habitat or sectoral dispensation, is an important determinant for application of the standard, as this provides the most consistently protective approach. In addition, it is demonstrated that where uncertainty or ignorance arises as to existence or level of harm, the use of precaution and giving the benefit of the doubt to nature is important for enhancing protection.
New Zealand conservation law is analysed at the international level in conjunction with species and habitat protection at the domestic level. International agreements, the Wildlife Act 1953, the Conservation Act 1987, the Resource Management Act 1991 and related policy and plans are examined. Although at times strongly beneficial, the research concludes that the arrangements made by the law are wanting. An important contribution of the research is to demonstrate the deficiencies, which can be separated into three classes: the problem of standard, the problem of consistency and integration, and the problem of implementation.
These problems constrain the protective force of the law. Fragmentation and lack of a strong and consistent protective standard limit protection of birds against competing social, economic and cultural factors. The law requires revision. Species protection calls for particular attention. The Wildlife Act 1953 maintains a standard of absolute protection of birds, but the research demonstrates the many ways in which this standard is compromised. Greater strategic planning and integration is required, particularly with regard to human development. Interrelationships between the statutes, including that between the Wildlife Act 1953 and the RMA 1991, require addressing. Inadequate implementation of existing law compounds these matters, and the research identifies a range of aspects where gains for species could be made. It concludes with a series of recommendations directed at the identified problems.

Pip Wallace 2014 PhD thesis
pwallace@waikato.ac.nz

text: Boundaries of absolute protection: distribution of benefit and harm to birds through law and planning in New Zealand Endemic birds in New Zealand are under threat, and increasingly so, as human activity reshapes the land, reconstitutes the water, consumes space and resources and alters faunal composition. The decline of biodiversity is a pressing concern globally and the unique nature of the endemic fauna of New Zealand provides impetus for concern. 
Examination of the state of birds and analysis of the response of New Zealand law to the agents of decline is the key contribution of this research. The substance and operation of New Zealand law is examined to determine its influence upon the distribution of benefit and burden to New Zealand birds. Six case study birds: the black petrel, dotterel, kokako, godwit, sooty shearwater, and the wrybill are studied to elucidate these matters.
In examining distribution of harm and benefit, a particular focus of the research is upon the degree of care that is applied to protecting birds through the law and related planning instruments. By assessing the principles, criteria and methods applied to protecting birds, the research identifies that an objective of avoidance of harm to indigenous Threatened or At Risk species, their habitats, and ecosystems upon which they depend, will benefit birds. It concludes that conservation status, as opposed to habitat or sectoral dispensation, is an important determinant for application of the standard, as this provides the most consistently protective approach. In addition, it is demonstrated that where uncertainty or ignorance arises as to existence or level of harm, the use of precaution and giving the benefit of the doubt to nature is important for enhancing protection.
New Zealand conservation law is analysed at the international level in conjunction with species and habitat protection at the domestic level. International agreements, the Wildlife Act 1953, the Conservation Act 1987, the Resource Management Act 1991 and related policy and plans are examined. Although at times strongly beneficial, the research concludes that the arrangements made by the law are wanting. An important contribution of the research is to demonstrate the deficiencies, which can be separated into three classes: the problem of standard, the problem of consistency and integration, and the problem of implementation.
These problems constrain the protective force of the law. Fragmentation and lack of a strong and consistent protective standard limit protection of birds against competing social, economic and cultural factors. The law requires revision. Species protection calls for particular attention. The Wildlife Act 1953 maintains a standard of absolute protection of birds, but the research demonstrates the many ways in which this standard is compromised. Greater strategic planning and integration is required, particularly with regard to human development. Interrelationships between the statutes, including that between the Wildlife Act 1953 and the RMA 1991, require addressing. Inadequate implementation of existing law compounds these matters, and the research identifies a range of aspects where gains for species could be made. It concludes with a series of recommendations directed at the identified problems.

Pip Wallace 2014 PhD thesis
pwallace@waikato.ac.nz

year: 2014

title: Unvoiced: A Fairytale

authors: Sobótka, Ruth Keeling

subjects: dystopian fiction

abstract: Outside the apartment, the Catastrophe is raging. After the Emergency six years before, a combination of nuclear ruin, atmospheric deterioration, epidemic disease and internecine warfare has emptied the City streets. Only children, curiously immune to both the crippling illness and war politics, venture out through the urban pollution to collect supplies and conduct business, ostensibly in their parents’ names.

Anna, mother of two teenage boys, is holed up inside and attempting to stay sane. Formerly a lawyer and relapsing frequently with the new disease, she conducts online affairs under a pseudonym, promoting the underground spread of health-preserving vaccines. Her absent husband, Seb, has long been conscripted to the Front. Anna’s mothering of her children is inflected by complex interdependence and power inversions, honed through long years of domestic isolation. One of her two boys is a daughter, Honey, whose distorted childhood freedom of the street is now threatened by her oncoming puberty. Honey assumes the boyish identity, Jack, which allows her to keep leaving the house, but this places her at risk of infection as well as on-street conscription if identified as an adult. Jack’s relationship with her mother becomes strained, as she grapples with her own maturing body, her mother’s ill-health, the looming restrictions of adulthood and her delegated role as her mother’s Voice.

Meanwhile, in a setting as yet untouched by the Catastrophe, Southland Kiwi farmer Nick views the global situation pragmatically, with an agricultural eye. Only partially aware of the dystopia outside the still-locked borders of New Zealand, Nick’s isolated rural community seems far-distanced from such cataclysmic events. Now suddenly, a strange new disease begins spreading amongst the young cattle Nick is grazing on his family farm. Suspecting that some part of the Catastrophe has reached the far South, Nick begins to research online, and he becomes obsessed with the disasters occurring outside New Zealand. As he invests more in his online persona, the international Catastrophe and the people living through it become more urgent to him than the issues of his own farm and family.

Spanning the fractured global story of our times, Unvoiced: A Fairytale draws on a range of voices from our post-pandemic moment. This unfurling dramaturgy of disorder juxtaposes divergent perspectives, news-clippings, flashbacks and fever dreams to weave a twisted fairytale in five Acts. Its flickering reportage of tentatively connected storylines explores a near-future in which disaster-hardened adults become entrapped in worlds of their own making, while the younger generation become carriers of disease, sexual violence, cynicism and disabling propaganda. Personal and social trauma embeds in family narratives and becomes intergenerational. New forms of identity and relationships unfold in the digital landscapes which connect us loosely, shaping personalities and raising troubling questions about who and where we really are. Which parts of our lives are merely invented, and by whom? What do we really know about our world, and how do we know it? Is the Catastrophe already upon us, or has it been fabricated online, and within us, by paranoid and sickening minds? 

Through haunting fragments and unfinished stories, woven with wistful nostalgia for what we have already lost, Unvoiced: A Fairytale warns of the potential human devastation arising out of the nightmarish conflagration of war, politics, disease and climate catastrophe.

text: Unvoiced: A Fairytale Outside the apartment, the Catastrophe is raging. After the Emergency six years before, a combination of nuclear ruin, atmospheric deterioration, epidemic disease and internecine warfare has emptied the City streets. Only children, curiously immune to both the crippling illness and war politics, venture out through the urban pollution to collect supplies and conduct business, ostensibly in their parents’ names.

Anna, mother of two teenage boys, is holed up inside and attempting to stay sane. Formerly a lawyer and relapsing frequently with the new disease, she conducts online affairs under a pseudonym, promoting the underground spread of health-preserving vaccines. Her absent husband, Seb, has long been conscripted to the Front. Anna’s mothering of her children is inflected by complex interdependence and power inversions, honed through long years of domestic isolation. One of her two boys is a daughter, Honey, whose distorted childhood freedom of the street is now threatened by her oncoming puberty. Honey assumes the boyish identity, Jack, which allows her to keep leaving the house, but this places her at risk of infection as well as on-street conscription if identified as an adult. Jack’s relationship with her mother becomes strained, as she grapples with her own maturing body, her mother’s ill-health, the looming restrictions of adulthood and her delegated role as her mother’s Voice.

Meanwhile, in a setting as yet untouched by the Catastrophe, Southland Kiwi farmer Nick views the global situation pragmatically, with an agricultural eye. Only partially aware of the dystopia outside the still-locked borders of New Zealand, Nick’s isolated rural community seems far-distanced from such cataclysmic events. Now suddenly, a strange new disease begins spreading amongst the young cattle Nick is grazing on his family farm. Suspecting that some part of the Catastrophe has reached the far South, Nick begins to research online, and he becomes obsessed with the disasters occurring outside New Zealand. As he invests more in his online persona, the international Catastrophe and the people living through it become more urgent to him than the issues of his own farm and family.

Spanning the fractured global story of our times, Unvoiced: A Fairytale draws on a range of voices from our post-pandemic moment. This unfurling dramaturgy of disorder juxtaposes divergent perspectives, news-clippings, flashbacks and fever dreams to weave a twisted fairytale in five Acts. Its flickering reportage of tentatively connected storylines explores a near-future in which disaster-hardened adults become entrapped in worlds of their own making, while the younger generation become carriers of disease, sexual violence, cynicism and disabling propaganda. Personal and social trauma embeds in family narratives and becomes intergenerational. New forms of identity and relationships unfold in the digital landscapes which connect us loosely, shaping personalities and raising troubling questions about who and where we really are. Which parts of our lives are merely invented, and by whom? What do we really know about our world, and how do we know it? Is the Catastrophe already upon us, or has it been fabricated online, and within us, by paranoid and sickening minds? 

Through haunting fragments and unfinished stories, woven with wistful nostalgia for what we have already lost, Unvoiced: A Fairytale warns of the potential human devastation arising out of the nightmarish conflagration of war, politics, disease and climate catastrophe.

year: 2025

title: From mainstream to manaaki: Indigenising our approach to immigration

authors: Kukutai, Tahu

abstract: In recent years, discontent with migration and migrants in the wealthy global north has manifested in disturbing ways: cue Brexit, xenophobia, border paranoia, far-right nationalism and its bedfellow white supremacy. On the surface, Aotearoa New Zealand appears to have escaped the uglier aspects of this nativism. Despite the grumblings of the New Zealand First Party, no serious popular or political anti-immigration movement has appeared, and racially motivated attacks against migrants are relatively rare. This is despite the fact that Aotearoa has a much higher relative foreign-born population share than the United States or United Kingdom,1 and ‘superdiverse’ Auckland – which comprises at least 40 per cent migrants – now has the ignominious claim to being the fourthleast affordable city in the world, far outstripping London and New York.

text: From mainstream to manaaki: Indigenising our approach to immigration In recent years, discontent with migration and migrants in the wealthy global north has manifested in disturbing ways: cue Brexit, xenophobia, border paranoia, far-right nationalism and its bedfellow white supremacy. On the surface, Aotearoa New Zealand appears to have escaped the uglier aspects of this nativism. Despite the grumblings of the New Zealand First Party, no serious popular or political anti-immigration movement has appeared, and racially motivated attacks against migrants are relatively rare. This is despite the fact that Aotearoa has a much higher relative foreign-born population share than the United States or United Kingdom,1 and ‘superdiverse’ Auckland – which comprises at least 40 per cent migrants – now has the ignominious claim to being the fourthleast affordable city in the world, far outstripping London and New York.

year: 2017