Nicola Toki has been Forest & Bird’s Chief Executive since 2022, after holding a senior leadership position in the Department of Conservation.
The past few years have been tough for many New Zealanders, and I think we’re tired. We’re looking for something uplifting that can bring us joy and meaning. My biggest hope for 2024 is that we find that positive purpose in te taiao nature.
As New Zealanders, a love of nature is hard-coded into our DNA. Now is the perfect time to reconnect with that innate part of ourselves, and I reckon it’s something that can bring us back together, too.
The first step is getting out and experiencing the wildlife and wild places that make Aotearoa so special. But don’t worry, appreciating nature doesn’t require a gigantic tramping pack and a hardcore mission up a mountain to a back-country hut. If that’s your jam, all power to you – I’m not one for uphill slogs (thanks, short legs).
I’m keen for Kiwis to discover our flora, fauna, whenua and moana on their own terms. It could be as simple as a stroll down the beach or a cuppa with your backyard birds. It could be pest control mahi – one of my favourite pastimes – or sustainably harvesting kaimoana.
A growing body of evidence shows that interacting with nature improves our physical and mental wellbeing. I hope we all take more time – even just a few more moments here and there – to benefit from the soul food te taiao provides.
After a year marked by floods and cyclones, I hope we are all safe from extreme weather fuelled by climate change in 2024. And I hope we take meaningful steps to ensure our mokopuna and future generations will be safe, too. Nature can help us in these efforts – from the carbon-storing power of the ngahere (forest) to the flood protection potential of wetlands. I hope decision-makers at all levels seize the opportunity to work with nature for those win-wins for people and planet.
But ultimately, the power of the people is greater than the people in power. In 2023, Forest & Bird turned 100. Looking back on a century of conservation mahi, we see that nature has the power to transcend political stripes and three-year government terms.
New Zealanders united to chip in and buy the island that was the last refuge of the Chatham Island black robin. We decided to save Lake Manapōuri. We’ve come together behind a long-term vision for landscapes teeming with birds rather than introduced predators.
Nature brings us together, no matter who you are or which corner of the country you call home.
Protecting and restoring our whenua and moana is something bigger than us. My hope is that we connect around this common purpose once again. I want people to get as fired up about nature as they did about “foreign interference” in our Bird of the Century election. We should keep aspiring to be better, to punch above our weight, not just maintain the status quo.
The success of New Zealand, here at home and on the world stage, always comes back to nature. It underpins tourism, our primary industries, our health and wellbeing, and our national identity. I keep coming back to this classic whakataukī: Toitū te marae a Tāne, Toitū te marae a Tangaroa, Toitū te tangata. If the land is well, and the sea is well, the people will thrive.
Ultimately, that’s my hope for Aotearoa: thriving nature and thriving people. It’s a lofty goal, and a long-term one, but also one I wholeheartedly believe we can all get behind.
