As I wrote before, it has been weird to be working as I’m working now. The last time I was out of NZ was in February... so these 8 months have been my longest period at home in the last 20 years! And also the longest I have not been on a fishing boat since I was 18 years old!!! At a personal level, I'm missing a bit of “my reality”... my personal and professional life are every intertwined so having some sort of small island routine ( as I live in one!) it gets repetitive sometimes
Another type of fish :-)
On the other side... my running, swimming, canoeing, surfing, and cycling km logging have been excellent! and it has been good to be home for the veggie garden and to rebuild stuff with my wife. Work-wise has been also good, lots of small jobs of the type I don't really like much, writing, policy analysis, seminars.
Yet interestingly it gave me the chance to reconnect a bit with NZ fisheries, a part of my life I left partly behind but I always care for.
As part of that relationship (and the fact that I’m here), I’ve been invited to be part of Future Search Hui (Maori term for an assembly) organized by the Waiheke Marine Project among some of its activities.
Future Search is a globally utilised, large scale planning event which brings the ‘whole system’ into the room. It is an action based, facilitated, programme to find common ground across diverse voices.
This multi-day Future Search event is starting this Friday 30 October and will run for 3 days, it will bring together approximately 70+ people to dialogue, reach common ground and agree on action to protect and regenerate the marine environment of Waiheke Island.
The Future Search planning group of diverse voices selected the 70+ Future Search participants after a period of ‘casting the net wide’ for voices from mana whenua, fishers & boaties, scientists, marine commercial operators, land interests, youth, conservationists, agencies & politicians and Waiheke locals.
And I have to say I’m quite impressed with the quality of some of the people coming, I’ve known a few professionally and personally and I’m looking forwards to meet some others I know about, but never meet personally
The outcomes will contribute to an eventual presentation to the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries and the Ministerial Advisory Committee of Sea Change targeted in December 2020. After that, the Waiheke Marine Project will change form into one that supports the collaborative actions generated by the Waiheke Community to protect and regenerate the seas around Waiheke Island.
What do I bring to the table?
Well… I’m an ocean person, it is my life… and it has been since I was a 12 years old cadet in the navy. My job and my recreation are based there…. I'm a long-distance ocean swimmer, a surfer, a paddler, a sailor, a spear-fisher, and also do some fishing with lures out of my waka -ama (outrigger canoe) either rowing or sailing. I’m quite committed to non-motorized fishing, I’m against the recreational use of combustion engines on land and sea (even if I’m a big visible man I've been run over by a cars while cycling and running and by a boat, while swimming, in all cases recreational users at the wheel, and have some bad scars to prove it, unfortunately)
Professionally, I’ve done the range from a commercial fisher, a fisheries technician/observer, a fisheries scientist, a fisheries officer for the UN FAO, a trainer of fisheries officer, an intelligence analyst for fisheries organisations, and a compliance specialist for quite a few international agencies and governments,
And if that wasn’t enough, I’m an immigrant!…hence I can be everyone’s friend or enemy… depending where you stand.
So yeah… I may have something to collaborate with, and while my position is clear in my head (wrote about it here) I’m going to listen to others over the 3 days.
I’m actually looking forwards… hui and long conversations to achieve consensus are a staple in the guarani culture I grew up, and in the pacific cultures I live and work.
Honestly, I have no idea if it will work and have an impact after... yet I would know even less staying from the outside without listening to what is said.