Restoration as reconnection: A relational approach to urban stream repair

To be more‐than‐human is to be relational, to no longer see the human as a discrete individual and to recognise the multivalent agency and import of the non‐human in bio‐physical, socio‐economic and cultural worlds. This Special Issue galvanises an interest by Aotearoa New Zealand geographers in non‐human–human relations and delivers more‐than‐human research from the edges: of the discipline, from our geographic position antipodal to ‘the west’ and ‘the north’, from early career researchers and from cognate literatures at the periphery of geographic thought. The contributions here question understandings of ethics, politics, conservation and economy through papers that explore affect, care, agency, discourses and practices with a range of more‐than‐human subject‐objects: blackberries, wine yeasts, insects, PFAS and urban streams.

Section: Special Issue Papersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antipodean more‐than‐human geographies: From the edges

Siimes,

Yee,

McSherry

et al. 2023

“…River restoration and management can often reflect dominant ideals of what a 'healthy' river should be (Blue, 2018). Pragmatic concerns for aesthetic or economic/productive values of the landscape must be viewed alongside environmental values in framing restoration practices that involve heterogeneous communities (Samuelson et al, 2023;Seymour et al, 2011). Complex assemblages of contemporary relations to the Waimat a River include interactions among mana whenua, residents, river users, farmers, forestry companies and local government (GDC).…”

Section: Support For Restoration and Management Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

River restoration as a sociocultural process: A case study from the Waimatā Catchment, Aotearoa New Zealand

Cairns,

Boswijk,

Brierley

2024

Surveys of sociocultural relations to rivers provide critical baseline information to appraise the effectiveness of restoration programmes. Findings from a mixed‐methods case study (document analysis, catchment‐wide questionnaire, semi‐structured interviews) show how local relations to the Waimatā River vary in upper, middle and lower catchment areas, in part influenced by historical (family) connections. Personal interactions with the river, and implications for mental and physical well‐being, decline with the perceived condition of the river. While respondents indicate the negative influence of governance arrangements upon river condition, they also highlight positive prospects that blue spaces can shape the co‐design and implementation of restoration activities.

“…Other remediation strategies rely on relations between PFAS and plants, such as phytoremediation, which makes use of PFAS' ability to act like water to carry it through plant stems (Bolan et al, 2021). While this could meet an objective of removing PFAS from soil, the plants are then removed and disposed of elsewhere, which just moves the PFAS molecules 'away', in a form of displacement of environmental effects (see Samuelson et al, 2023). Destroying them takes place at a new location.…”

Section: Remediationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing ubiquitous ‘forever chemicals’: More‐than‐human possibilities for the problem of PFAS

Buttle,

Sharp,

Fisher

2023

We provide a perspective on the ubiquity of PFAS (a suite of unique per‐ and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or ‘forever chemicals’) as toxic, pervasive and environmentally persistent more‐than‐human agents. We situate our discussion of these more‐than‐human contaminants in our location of Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), a post‐production, post‐consumption contaminated site. We therefore make an Antipodean contribution to PFAS research—a predominantly North American/European body of work—providing an account of the specific landmasses, cultural contexts and regulation here, while also noting simultaneous entanglements with the global environment. In dealing with this group of contaminants, we identify opportunities for Aotearoa NZ's regulatory and management processes to consider the more‐than‐human theorising of aspects of ‘the natural world’, not for their utility but for the intrinsic value of more‐than‐human lives, and in order to do regulation, policy and practice differently.