Ella Harrison

I pressed my shoulders into my mother, firm and unrelenting, and with all my strength I pushed against my father. Their love was all encompassing, a joining so powerful I feared we would be eternally imprisoned in its shadow. I pushed harder, unleashing the last of my energy, and the universe tore apart. My father was thrown to the heavens, my dear mother left bare and bleeding, her anguished cries eclipsed by our desperation to escape the perpetual night. I stood tall, holding the weight of the sky, and from the darkness we emerged into Te Ao Mārama, the enlightened world.

Ranginui wept for Papatūānuku, his grief fierce yet soft. Tears soaked the red clay of the earth in torrents, soothing our mother’s wounds. I fashioned a cloak, covering her body with a forest of kauri. Over time the forest flourished and the cloak became a blanket that swept the land, providing shelter and sustenance for the many creatures of the earth. It was spectacular. A monster in its own right, a sea of speckled trunks grew taller than one could imagine, keeping earth and sky apart. Branches swayed with the elements, bony fingers reaching for one another, entwined in a familiar, comforting embrace. It was the leaves that spoke, whispering in voices so soft they could only be heard if one knew how to listen, their conversations carried on the wings of the wind.

My brothers and I created an exquisite world, and from this we created life. Hineahuone was born from the soil of Kurawaka and the breath of Tāwhirimātea. She was a peculiar thing, small and very fragile, but full of wonder at the beauty of Aotearoa, the land she found herself upon. We gave her everything she required; food, shelter, warmth, and in return she gave us mankind. Hineahuone and I had a child, Hinetītama, who painted the sky red and protected the threshold between darkness and light. She was dawn and she was dusk, and, eventually, she was death. As time went on more children were born, and Aotearoa was filled with laughter and love. It was glorious. Rivers flowed strong and with purpose. Glaciers dazzled in the sunlight. The ocean threw itself onto black sand in a familiar dance, sighing each time the moon dragged it away. For many years we co-existed with mankind, living harmoniously and peacefully, until one day, we didn’t.

For a long time, humans took what they needed and nothing more. The forest was vital to survival, you see, and respect was mutual. But as civilisation evolved, man became greedy. Over the years I’d had many people in my presence, although the number of visitors had dwindled as the natural world took a back seat to industrial advancement. Humans were becoming increasingly innovative, and I did not know this was cause for concern until a small boy wandered into my clearing and sat cross-legged before me. He craned his neck and squinted his eyes until they appeared to be nearly shut, trying to catch a glimpse of the sky through my leaves. 

Boy, what are you doing? I mused.

The boy stood abruptly and walked toward me, spreading his arms wide. He looked from his left hand to his right, then to me, and shook his head, his face an expression of awe. He walked a circle around my body, his bare feet crunching softly in the undergrowth. He sat before me once more, tilted his head, and told me about the town’s plans to build something called a kauri dam. “Pa was telling me about it. Something to do with felling all these trees and sending ‘em down the river, ready to be chopped up and turned into houses and the like.” 

A kauri dam? Felling? Until now, humans had taken only from those who had fallen naturally. There was a balance in the act of giving and taking, and over the centuries we had turned this into a fine art. I was suddenly aware of how precarious this balance had become, and I realised with a jolt that generations had passed, and mankind had changed.  

True to the boy’s word, dams were built and the cloak covering Papatūānuku was snatched from her body, leaving our earth mother naked and exposed once more. I felt the first cut deep in my belly, a persistent ache that refused to ease. The next blow was sharp in my ribs, splitting me in two. When I felt the fire in my chest, searing and brutal, I knew Aotearoa had changed irrevocably. Our bodies were mutilated, mankind’s tools having ripped us apart with their ragged, metallic teeth. The swamps were ravaged, those of us at rest in the murky depths brusquely unearthed from our graves and bled dry of our gum. Weakened by the loss of their home, the creatures of the forest were vulnerable, and, one by one, I watched as death gathered them in her arms and took them as her own. She stalked the remnants of the land, slithering between ferns and hiding in the spaces the light couldn’t touch. She was a powerful entity, eerie yet soothing; her cold breath offering respite, her embrace relieving all suffering.

The humans took so much from us I feared the barrier between my mother and father would collapse, and the world would be plunged once more into eternal darkness. We were tired. We had all but lost a war we didn’t know we were fighting. My feathered children were defenceless; they had nowhere to go and nothing to protect them. Predators were thriving, feeding on the weak. Each day the blue wattled kōkako would sing a melancholy tune, waiting for her mate to complete the duet they once sang together. She spent her days floating through the treetops, searching for the departed, haunting the forest with the echoes of her solo. 

Eventually the humans realised what they’d done, and they stopped. What remained of the forest was placed under protection, and we were safe. But the war wasn’t over. It still isn’t. Erosion has plagued Aotearoa, turning vibrant pastures into nothing more than barren wastelands. Rivers and streams flow faster without our bodies to slow them, washing mountains of man-made waste into our waterways. The glorious kauri forest that once cloaked our earth mother is barely recognisable. What remains is magnificent, but plighted by disease. A silent killer, dieback latches onto innocent forest dwellers and spreads like wildfire. It burrows deep into our soil and sinks its fangs in our roots, poisoning us from the inside out. We become grey and ghostly; leaves turned brittle from starvation. The forest is quiet now, our voices too weak to be carried by the wind. The dead lay peacefully, devoid of bark, skeletal branches cold and bare. 

This disease is merciless. Unlike mankind, it has no empathy. It cannot be stopped by kind hearts and good intentions. I stand in the north, keeping watch over Aotearoa. Mankind is helping, urging each other to contain the spread by keeping to the tracks and cleaning their shoes. Deforestation took so much from us, and dieback is trying its hardest to take what’s left. We must not let it. We must work together to preserve our earth, for we are all connected - it’s where our journey began.