Maintaining Makara Peak - Night 55

Toby arrived at the house around 9 and we all piled into the red van for a drive up to Makara Peak. Today’s work would include track work and weeding at the Makara Peak, the City of Wellington’s world famous (at least in biking circles) mountain bike park located just minutes from downtown. Along the way, we picked up our city liaison, Jonathan. A trained ecologist, Jonathan

Makara Peak

now works part-time for the city maintaining the Makara Peak park, publishes biking books with his brother, and has begun to dabble in carbon farming. New Zealand, being environmentally innovative, has implemented carbon trading as a method to dissuade polluters and persuade land owners to retain native (or planted) forests. Basically, Jonathan’s land, which is forested, is worth a certain number of carbon credits which he can sell to local industries at an agreed upon price – currently around $25 a hectare per year. He and his associates are chancing on an increased demand for credits and, thus, they are in the process of looking for more forested land to buy on the south island. He and I spent much of the afternoon picking each other’s brains on the state of the others country’s feelings on climate change, farm subsidies, and politics in general.

Group Photo at Makara

Since the weather was abnormally calm we spent the entire morning removing rocks and fixing ruts along one of the many bike tracks leading down from the peak. The afternoon saw us weeding the southern slope of the summit which had become overrun with invasive gorse and Dutch holly. Both plants are incredibly persistent and need to be dabbed with gelatin poison within one minute of cutting their stems. Interestingly, a bit of controversy surrounds the gorse plant. While certainly a prolific spreader and an exotic plant from South America (not to mention the sharp spikes covering the entire plant), the gorse is a nitrogen fixer and provides great growing conditions for smaller native trees. As such, many ecologists suggest leaving the gorse plant stay unless it is direct conflict with rare native species.

It was a good, hard day on the mountain. Our reward was a build your own pizza night. After dinner, we sat down for a nice family viewing of the movie ‘300’. A tale of the small group of Spartans’ stand against the mighty Persian armies of Xerxes, the film was every bit as gory as the DVD cover indicated. A masterpiece of computer graphics and cinematography, the plot in and of itself was rather weak. But then again, this movie wasn’t about plot, it was about the glorification of sacrifice and stubbornness (and xenophobia)…and in that it succeeded. All critical comments aside, the historical significance of the event should not be forgotten, for many scholars attribute the continuance of the Greek society and thus the rise of all of Western Civilization to the bravery of these 300 men. For without their having stood against Xerxes, all of Europe would likely have been eventually developed as Middle Eastern societies.

What I Learned Today: With Kevin Rudd’s victory over John Howard in the Australian election last week, Australia is certain to sign the Kyoto Protocol, leaving only the United States as the lone non-signatory. Granted, I will be the first one to admit that a treaty that doesn’t require any emissions regulation for China or India cannot be the final answer to climate change, it is, nonetheless, a start. Our signing of the treaty would show that we as a nation have accepted anthropogenic climate change as a fact and are beginning to work towards correcting the problem. Whether or not this is possible in our country filled with 300 million people -- most of who want to live like kings -- has yet to be seen, but as an old Chinese man once said: the longest of journeys starts with the single step.

The reason I bring this up is that, though likely all of you back home may not think about the Kyoto Protocol on a daily basis, many may not even know what it is; the rest of the world is more than concerned about it. Because of this very fact, being an American overseas we must answer to our nation’s failure to act on the issue. The most prevalent comment is a question “why are the citizens of your country not calling for action on climate change?” A great question indeed. Yes, some are, but others stand firmly in the camp of “let’s wait for more data.” Thirty years of studies, thousands of reports, 99% of which support anthropogenic climate change, and now, actual action/non-action scenario studies…scary scenario studies showing that much can be saved in way of lives and money if we act sooner rather than later. Yet this is not enough for some…for many, in fact, many of whom believe in great miracles and mysteries ‘recorded’ by goat herders two thousand years ago, but yet adamantly doubt thousands of scientific studies performed in the last few years -- the same science that powers their cars, heats their homes, and transmits live signals to their televisions. I now see why citizens of other nations look upon us and wonder what exactly is going on in America.

written by

exumenius on December 4, 2007 from Wellington, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

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