100% toxic: A review of the environmental history of toxins and toxicity in Aotearoa New Zealand

Over the last three decades, scholars have produced a large body of work showcasing how people have engaged with the environments of Aotearoa New Zealand culturally, politically, intellectually, and economically. This diversity in perspective is perhaps best exemplified by the 2002 anthology Environmental Histories of New Zealand edited by Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, and of which a new edition, Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, was published in 2013.[i] Nevertheless, there remain perspectives largely absent in New Zealand environmental historiography. Foremost among them are matters of toxins and toxicity. Indeed, while the Waitangi Tribunal has shed light on the impacts of toxins in some of its reports, for example how sewage discharge and industrial waste have polluted traditional fishing grounds, scholarship conducted outside the Waitangi Tribunal has been largely limited to expose the hypocrisy of marketing slogans like “100% Pure New Zealand” by showcasing how agricultural and industrial practices have polluted and continue to pollute lands, lakes and rivers.[ii] [i] Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, eds., Environmental Histories of New Zealand (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002); Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, eds., Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013). See also Tom Brooking, Eric Pawson, et. al., Seeds of Empire: The Environmental Transformation of New Zealand, new edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). [ii] See, for example: Jonathan West, “Mirrors on the Land: Histories of New Zealand Lakes,” Journal of New Zealand Studies NS30 (2020): 2-37; Catherine Knight, Beyond Manapouri: 50 Years of Environmental Politics in New Zealand (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2018); Catherine Knight, New Zealand’s rivers: An Environmental History (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press); Terry Hearn, “Mining the quarry,” in Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013), 106-121; Tom Brooking and Vaughan Wood, “The grassland revolution reconsidered,” in Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013), 193-208; Nicola Wheen, “An updated history of New Zealand environmental law,” in Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013), 277-292; Michael J. Stevens, “Ngāi Tahu and the ‘nature’ of Māori modernity,” in Making a New Land: Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2013), 293-309. For instances where the Waitangi Tribunal have studied the impact of toxins, see, for example Waitangi Tribunal, The Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Motunui-Waitara claim (Wai 6), second edition (Wellington: The Tribunal, 1989) and Waitangi Tribunal, Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Manukau claim (Wai 8), second edition, (Wellington: The Tribunal, 1989).

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