 Inīwe katoa na mi hi i ke katoa iroa, rangatira maa, new frontiers, tēnā katoa iwi tone, tēnā katoa, tēnā katoa katoa. I'm just rapt to be here. I've been to every new frontiers. What I like about you is your paradigm to challenge what we do. I prefer to be introduced as Tumuaki rather than Director-General. And really the thoughts that you give to us about how we save this pressure, whenua and āwa, come from some of the energy in the room. And every time I come here, I get new ideas. So I'm going to take you through the story of our nature. I grew up on the West Coast. I've grown up in nature. I ran the New Zealand Antarctic Program for 11 years. So I really got immersed deeply in climate change research, helped set up to Papātafai and for five years I've been running it. So the New Zealand story is about open spaces, open hearts, open minds. And what we say at the Papātafai is we're a critical part of the story. We can't grow our primary industries without protecting nature. And with Prime Minister Adurn, we have a person who is saying, we've have to switch from the wellbeing of people and the environment to grow the economy. So it's a complete dichotomy to what we've previously had. And we've got 181 million of new money based on that scenario as we cannot continue to damage our environment and we're going to grow our economy off this environment. And in the words of Tamati Kruger from Tuhoe, nature owns us. We don't own that. And if we nurture nature, we live good lives. But the minute we think we own nature, we're in trouble. So, you know, I don't want to take anything away from Kupe's amazing discovery of Aotearoa and those voyages of those giant waka coming through the Pacific. But I want to give you some understanding of why New Zealand has so much of its biodiversity in trouble and why it's such a privilege to try and address this. So last year we had this ship, the Joides Resolution, coming around New Zealand and drilling at the edge of these plates to nail the hypothesis, is Zelandia a continent? And what we've found from that is that shape going right up to New Caledonia is actually an ancient continent that actually came out of Australia, Antarctica and New Guinea. And that's why when you go to New Caledonia, you go to the West Coast of New Caledonia, it actually feels like Kaikoura. They've got the Kadu, we've got the Kiwi. They've got so many ferns there. So what's happened is this continent has come above the ocean and sunk below it and come up again and then plate tectonics, the Australian plate crashing into the Pacific plate have led to this fastest growing place on the earth as it comes up into the southern Alps but also our roads and one of the most geologically unstable places on the planet. So I call it ancient antiquity in terms of this incredible place that grew up without mammals. So these land bridges all broke apart and we are a land of birds. We have the highest order as birds. Tuatara, 80 million years old. They are prehistoric reptile. Hotch-titters frog communicate through chemical secretions. The Kiwi was an ancient bird that came out of Antarctica. It's the only one that's the giant elephant bird in Madagascar is the nearest lineage to the Kiwi and we've got a bird in the South America called the Tenamu. So this was a bird that was able to fly here and in the absence of mammals grew to this flightless nature. The kauri forests were in Antarctica. We now know through some of the fossil records that kauri was the dominant species in Antarctica and the little rifleman there, or Titi Ponamu, is the ancient lineage of all the rens in the world and the mohua is the ancient lineage of all the canaries in the world. So that's how special this place is and then we had this gigantism, these mowers and the Haas Eagle came into New Zealand about a million years ago. It flew in from Australia and developed into this massive bird, the largest eagle on the planet and forced many of our birds into a nocturnal habitat because it went round plucking kakapo like they were magnum ice creams. But if you can imagine a bird with talons as big as a leopard, that's what the Haas Eagle was. So it's an incredible biodiversity hat. Māori came here 900 years and had a concept of rahui and knew how to live with nature. Pākehā arrived from Cook in 1795 onwards and proceeded to decimate this place as we bought in rats, cats, possums, stoats. In 1826 we tried to start a fur industry. So as we were colonised, Europeans were colonising this place, they were trying to create a little Britain. So in Grey Town, not far from here, we had the first inland town where the Britifids who were close friends of Queen Victoria were able to get the best deer in the world from the Hyde Park herd. We had foxes, we had badgers. We were actually really trying to recreate how we lived in Britain. Then we bought in the possums from Australia. We wanted a fur industry in 1826. We didn't get them going, but in 1836 and got them really going. And then we bought in rabbits because fur was a big thing in China and we could have an export industry of rabbit fur, released them at Port Charmers, released them out at Grey Town, released them in Bluff near Invercargill and they slowly decimated the landscapes until they overtook the pioneering farmers. So then our first conservation debate was in 1880 at the time that Rudard Kipling wrote this poem called The Cities. And this was about Auckland, which he described as the last, loneliest, loveliest exquisite. So at that time Auckland would have been teeming with Kiwi, with Kokako, with He-He, with Tui, with Bellbird. And in 1880, because the farmers were being decimated by rabbits, we had a debate in Parliament about whether we bring in musterlets, rots, stoats and ferrets. And the scientific community in New Zealand, remember the treaty partners pretty much been quieting in this whole debate and it becomes a debate between the farmers and the science community in New Zealand. The scientists pleaded with the government not to bring in stoats. And the farming community won out and we started to bring in stoats in their hundreds and thousands. And we started breeding them and releasing them and we released Alexandra to kill off the rabbits and within four years they'd got into dusky sound. And Richard Henry, the first conservation ranger in the world, whose job was to to roll kakapo and Kiwi on to Resolution Island and the first conservation reserves in New Zealand, Resolution Island, Kapiti Island and Houturu in the Gulf. All because of this debate about what we're going to do about stoats. We protected stoats for about 15 years. And then the new government came in in 1900 and said we're going to make this the world's greatest game reserve. So we brought in moose and chamium tar and deer. So you can see what was happening against this ancient antiquity and these birds and animals that just didn't know how to cope with all these animals that we were introducing. In one place in New Zealand in Tupaki and the far north in Te Hiku, you can put out your arm and there's 50 species of snails. So it's incredible biodiversity. The only thing that matches that is parts of New Guinea and Costa Rica. So what we're saying is our nature is central to our national identity. We grow up in nature. We grow up posiming, we grow up kayaking, we grow up in these wonderful environments and the environment we grow up in Haast is quite different to the environment we grow up in Kaitaia. But we are people of the land and unlike many other countries the whole DNA comes from nature. We wake up every morning to the dawn the bird call when Radio New Zealand it's in our money, our war dead sit under the silver fern it is part of who we are as a nature. So in using the term our nature we're saying Doc doesn't own this. With our treaty partner this is your nature. So we've found it's been too much Doc thinks it's precious this is how you act. We're saying it's yours. And for 80 million years we've grown up in this exceptional place and we have a strong connection. So we'll only fix it when we engage our hearts and minds we cannot do it alone, we cannot do it. We're doing it with treaty partner we're doing it with NGOs, we're doing it with NEXT Foundation, great to see Bill Komode here and that 100 million that NEXT Foundation is putting into environment and education just a huge voter voter confidence in what we're doing with nature and youth. And we're doing it with our treaty partner and unlike most government agencies we have a unique relationship to our treaty partner because this is their ancestral lands this is their whenua, their awa and if you can get a future of conservation with treaty partner it's a slam dunk when you come into a debate with fishes or farmers or NGOs if you're linked at the hip with treaty partner now I don't say we're always the best but we really aim to be linked at the hip with our treaty partner in advancing how we manage these special lands of New Zealand because it is it's a slam dunk in terms of policy every other thing we do when we're linked with our treaty partner and it's a unique part of my job as director-general so this if the land is well the sea is well the people will thrive that was Maori's philosophy in terms of New Zealand is how to live with nature in New Zealand and that's really where we've got to get back to so our purpose is to work with others to increase the value of conservation for New Zealanders so it's signalling we cannot do it alone so we've got three things we've really got to do number one is reversing New Zealand's biodiversity decline we have to do it there's a call to arms, it's a burning platform we're seeing a record increase in tourism all the sites we see now are going to have another million by 2025 and in some parts of New Zealand we are struggling with social licence we're struggling with camper vans and many of our parks are heading to a million and we have to enable our treaty partner in terms of how we manage whenua in our way so those are the things that get me out of bed is how we do this and this is the plan is what I'm working on at the moment so 50% of New Zealand's natural ecosystems are benefiting from pest management and we now know that stoats, rats and possums are primie enemies number one so we're set up predator free we've done a lot of work with NEXT Foundation on zero invasive predators how do we actually clear areas of pests and then keep them clear without having to use more 1080 sensors so we've got 2000 communities in Auckland we've got 16,000 people in Wellington City aiming for predator free Wilding Pines, just behind Hamner 2014-2017 we're putting 16 million in to try and Wilding Pines will take New Zealand over if we don't do something about it we're going for 100 million in this budget New Zealand will start to look like Aspen and is that what we want Mackenzie will be taken over by Wilding Pines as climate change kicks in and you can see that just in five years Myrtle rust blue in here last three years ago from Australia to Taranaki so as fast as we work on pests we've got new ones coming in and Kari Daivak is in absolute I know the previous minister said if Tane Mahuta dies you lose your job that is such a symbol to New Zealand of our spirituality and connection with nature Tane Mahuta 90% of our threatened species are managed to enhance their populations so we're doing well with KakaPo we've got the the semen drone flying semen across whenua ho and getting that semen to the females as quick as we can because these boys are too slow to get so we've got some real breakthrough technology in getting every egg to have a chick so we'll push through 200 KakaPo which is remarkable for a bird that went down to 70 birds Takahi we're going through 300 we've introduced the first wild population with Ngai Tahu into the Hefie track Karko we now got self-sustaining populations and Taiko the world's rarest petrol 26 chicks born last year but we're still in trouble Antibody wandering albatross 50% decline since 2005 these birds are getting hit in the long-line fishery off the Humboldt current off Chile so we're going to have to work internationally on this the air will ground beetle probably extinct this year the fairy turn around about 60 pears on the beaches of Walkworth and Matakana where we have some of our highest population density and Rata Morhau Bartlett's Rata in the far north only 8 trees and if myrtle rusk gets in that we lose them 50 freshwater are restored from mountains to seas so this is a project we started with Fonterra and Fonterra needed some social licence we started as a traditional project of planting riparians and we've moved into a social movement of how farmers address the decline in water how they stop nitrogen how they actually work on riparians how they buy diversity and streams back so Fonterra has announced another 50 with Fiki Robertson's work on freshwater ecosystems at risk we are trying to do this together and we will, with the new money we're doing we will have something like 25 ecosystems where we're doing a significant restoration work In Nunga Waitbate two of those species are threatened and we cannot continue to eat and sell that species at the rate we are now this has been part of our heritage of kiwis of growing up and having a feed of Waitbate has become a highly commercial species worth over $100 a kilo we're going to have to make some changes to that we're going to have to work out how we bring back giant cocklepool in places like the Manure Hero Kea the Manure Hero Kea was one of those near Alexandra's, one of those ancient landscapes that didn't drop below the ocean where these species survived and when the farmers came here they were using moa bones they were using moa bones to light fires so it was an incredible place if you think of St Bathins had our only crocodile so this is sort of these ancient landscapes of little pockets of New Zealand we've got a thousand huts across New Zealand many from the days of internal affairs and forest service when we were trying to kill deer we've got these gorgeous little places and we're working now with communities and they are fixing a lot of these huts are 60 years old they are doing these huts up for about $6,000 a hut and it's so much better working with the community than us you know, hopping in helicopters and doing it these are doing it as a holiday job going in and hut by hut fixing huts pia piotahi milford sound going through a million there's Aoraki with just that's a camper van park and a campsite it's absolutely chaotic and of course as we start to manage that we're going to put pressure on all those Mackenzie landscapes and I was in twice the last week where we had a public meeting about the loss of landscapes freshwater issues and dairy farming the number one issue was tourism you know one night, 20th of January this year there were 7,000 camper vans camped at various places in the Mackenzie Basin and of course Queenstown Lakes District Council was tightened up in camper vans and that's pushed into the Mackenzie so we're not thinking strategically across the country we've got a 130 million marketing machine bringing international people in and we've got a 140 million machine like Doc looking after them and we've got a tiny policy unit in MB deciding what we do so we've got to change that and fortunately this government to you know and powering up that whole where we go 90% of New Zealanders we want to connect with conservation because it's their land healthy nature, healthy people we know there are significant benefits for obesity, for mental health for health of people recreating in their natural environments we're doing a $10 million partnership with Ministry of Health for communities in New Zealand out into nature because we know recovery in nature is quicker we know it has healing effects we want people, we've got 200,000 volunteers we want them nurtured we want them valued we want education programmes because we need to create the next group of people that are prepared to go out and kill a rat, a stote, a possum or take out Darwin's Barbary or a wilding pine the stories because you know the stories are very much part stories of nature are very much part who we are so we've with Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage we've branded Tohu whenua which is the stories that will tell the birth of a nation be it the Tungawa disaster be it at Russell, the first part site there these are stories that are so important that part of our DNA and we want as Kiwis to experience these stories as we go through this through this landscape and we want tourists to come and see it and lastly a nation-eyed network of marine protected areas in place representing our marine ecosystems we've been missing a bit on marine policy we've been struggling how we do the Kermadex ocean sanctuary I was part of the Rossi marine protected area the largest marine protected area ever created on the planet and there the issues were how do we get Russia and China in and there was constant dialogue with Russia and China till we got that breakthrough and I think with the Kermadex it's really how do we work with our treaty partner on a bigger vision of what we're doing in our oceans I was in the Melbourne Sands last week the water temperature had got to 19.5 degrees within 10 years King Salmon will not be able to operate in those sounds so we have to work out how we shift our whole aquaculture industry out into deep ocean because the sounds are now too warm so these are huge challenges that we're going to have to face really, really quickly but we're going to have to do an environment where we're protecting what we value the most the poor nights on the left 40,000 people visit that that is one of the most stunning marine reserves on the world and the humpback whales in 1964 the Soviet Union and Japan went into the Ross Sea and virtually exterminated New Zealand's humpback whale population and that was the year the whaling station closed in Tauri Channel those whales are coming back we now know through science that there's a big channel they go through the Pacific Islands and then they've found out as they come down the coast and they go as far south as Chile before they come back up the New Zealand coast we're getting a recovery about 10% to 15% a year but Korea and China and Norway are inventing these big krill vacuum ships which are going to impact the way the whales are going to Antarctic in the first place so hopefully that gives you what we're trying to do and why it's important we get challenged by you and you can see why it's so important we work with our Treaty partner on one of the biggest challenges New Zealand faces if we can do this it's a whole new country we're talking about with a brand of wine and meat that should have a premium and that's what we haven't quite broken through to how we're going to do that Curve it