Abstract:
As a child, I wanted to be many things when I grew up. I considered being a fireman. Everyone has to, right? That seemed very cool. I wanted to join the military but baulked at the possibility of being ‘called up’. And then I fell in love with the bush and the natural environment. My father was on the Urewera National Park Board and was always disappearing to Gisborne or Wairoa or Waikaremoana. Then he disappeared to the US as a Winston Churchill Scholar. When he came home, as a whānau we would watch slideshows with images of Indigenous peoples and places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland … I dreamed about all the places I wanted to travel to. I did not dream of being an academic.