Totara Press launched “Nature and Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand” on 12 November in Wellington, with attendees coming from far and wide: Auckland, Hamilton, Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay and even Christchurch. Thank you all for coming and for making the event such a success! We were so fortunate to have Professor Bruce Clarkson as our launch speaker, ably supported by Caitlyn Madge. Here are some photographs of the evening, taken by Bob Zuur. (Click right arrow to progress through slideshow.)
nature and wellbeing
New book exploring nature and wellbeing in New Zealand
I am very excited to announce the emergence into the world of my latest book Nature and Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand: Exploring the connection (Totara Press).
This comes as the culmination of three years of research, interviews and writing, but in many ways, could not be more timely. The experience of many New Zealanders during this year’s Covid lockdown has only served to underscore how important access to natural spaces are – for both body and mind.
To find out more about the book, visit the Totara Press webpage.
Details on launch coming soon!
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Christchurch’s “Garden of Tranquility”
Christchurch, and especially its Red Zone, it a veritable hotbed of nature and wellbeing projects – the topic of my latest book. A vast area in the eastern parts of Christchurch as well as a number of inner city sites were deemed too risky to reoccupy following the February 2011 earthquake. While this has had tragic consequences for those many people who had to say goodbye to their homes, gardens and neighbourhoods forever, it has created a unique opportunity – unique not only within the context of New Zealand and its history, but also a rare opportunity anywhere in the world. I explored this in my 2016 book New Zealand’s Rivers. Continue reading
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Bush kindy: getting kids into nature
Last week, I had the privilege of visiting a forest school session in Waituna West (not far from the Manawatu town of Feilding). This is part of my research for my latest book, exploring nature and wellbeing in New Zealand (see also: The connection between nature & wellbeing).
Children from Waituna West and Hunterville kindergartens participated in the session. For many of them this was a new experience, and it was a joy to watch them slowly ‘acclimatise’ to the new, and rather unfamiliar, bush environment, becoming more exploratory and experimental as the session progressed.
In the photos, they can be seen washing their hands at the bush ablution facility, listening intently to Lucy’s reading of ‘Room on the broom’ by Julia Donaldson (which was followed by a practical exercise of making a witches’ broom from forest materials), doing some bush ‘wood work’, and taking a walk.
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Seeking quiet inspiration in the forest
On another of these sweltering hot days, what better thing to do than seek respite in the coolness of the forest. (Well, apart from finding a shady spot beside a large body of water, that is.) Caitlyn and I chose to go for a forest wander this afternoon, followed – it has to be said – by a river dip.
We enjoyed looking at the natural mosaics on the forest floor, and while we were examining one, Caitlyn spotted this tail-less skink! On our way back from the walk the skink was still there, so we sat down on a rock nearby and ‘watched his stillness’, as Caitlyn put it. He didn’t seem to mind our company, either.
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‘Komorebi’ – sunlight filtering through leaves
As part of my literature review for my book exploring the connection between nature and wellbeing in New Zealand, I have been reading Shinrin-yoku: The art and science of forest-bathing, by Dr Qing Li, who has researched the subject extensively in Japan.
In describing the Japanese experience of spending time in a forested environment, he draws the reader’s attention to the Japanese word ‘komorebi’, 木漏れ日 in Japanese characters, meaning ‘sunlight filtering through leaves’ (木 = tree, 漏れ = leak through, 日 = sun). Continue reading
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Nature & wellbeing in NZ – case study ideas please
As you may have seen from an earlier post Can you help? The connection between nature & wellbeing I am interested in exploring the connection between nature and wellbeing as the subject of my next book. In that earlier post, I asked for help finding existing literature on the topic, particularly in the New Zealand context. And I got some super-helpful responses, so thank you so much to everyone who responded! Continue reading
envirohistory NZ 