Tara Ward talks to the conservation and endangered species of the Hills, hope and how to save the planet.
Nicola Toki is deeply in Fiordland’s shrub, looking for the heaviest parrot in the world. It is the episode two of the new season of threatened species of Atearoa, and the dedicated conservationist drags alongside comedian Pax Assadi through deep and dense mud. After an intrepid tramp through untouched land, a conservation department ranger announces that its transmitter finally located one of the iconic Kākāpō – but is on top of a steep hill with the sinister name of “elevator.”
The news makes Assadi’s mouth fall from horror. Toki looks silently to his feet. “Please, say it is called ‘elevator’ because there is a real elevator,” Assadi begs, but it is not possible. Toki and Assadi begin the arduous rise on the face of the cliff, but when the Forest Guard finally locates Patawa, the Kākāpō, the mood lifts instantly. “I can see!” Assadi whispers. “I” am crying, “a visibly emotional Toki responds. Joining the celebration are three rare kākā that appear suddenly in the trees above, called by the shouted of the magnificent kākāpō.
Is a magical moment, only one of the many in the series of nature documentaries that celebrates and educates Most vulnerable and threatened creatures from New Zealand. Even months later, in a zoom conversation, Toki reveals that, although he has seen Kākāpo and many other native animals threatened before, the joy and wonder of witnessing these unique creatures in their natural habitat never diminish. “I saw hundreds of kiwi, and every time I see a kiwi, I’m going to cry.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihfn-m1xu1s
Toki’s love for the natural world started early. As a child, in Southland, her parents took her camp and fishing at 1975 1975 Sprite Potop camper, and she spent a lot of time on her grandmother’s farm in Waimahaka. There, she played on the native Bush that her grandmother refused to clean, swaying vines and calling Pīwakawaka down. These formative experiences gave Toki a fierce appreciation for the world around them. “I had the privilege of interacting with nature and a family that wanted to promote it,” she says. “I think I never lost.”
His family moved by Teo Waipounamu after his father – originally a more suitable welder in Tiwai Point – decided to follow his dream of becoming a ski plane pilot. They ended up living in Araki Mount Cook National Park, and it is no coincidence that the first episode of threatened species of Atearoa was filmed there. “I fought a lot for that,” Toki reveals, knowing that the mountainous landscape would be an amazing character to launch the series. “The team got there, and they said ‘whoa’.”
Returning to Araki to a TV show was a full circle moment for Toki, who studied zoology at the University of Otago and later a postgraduate degree in Natural History, Cinema and Communication. The course was a partnership with the Natural History New Zealand, and Toki was taught by people like Peter Hayden, Rod Morris and Paul Donovan, all whom she watched In homemade natural TV shows Every Sunday night.
Here she learned the power of the narrative, a skill that would be invaluable throughout her career in defense of conservation. After working as a camera operator on Dunedin’s channel 9 and as an intern at the Tūhura Otago Museum, Toki joined the conservation department and began talking about nature on programs like Good Morning and Get to know the local inhabitants. Toki’s Cricter of the Week The segment in RNZ now attracts 100,000 listeners every weekAnd inspired the publication of his children’s book Creatures of Aotearoa.
Toki says the narrative is also in the heart of endangered species of extinction, and she has a special talent for communicating facts and information with enthusiasm and heat. The series does not deny that our natural world is in trouble, but Toki knows from experience that a call to action is much more powerful than misfortune and despair. “I have been believing for a long time to tell stories that say, ‘Take a look at this thing, it’s really amazing. Actually, you’re in trouble, but when you do it and that, you can change it,'” she says.
This feeling of hope is something Toki was aware every time she entered the front of the camera. “Otherwise, we would just be doing a series about filming endangered animals, and no one wants it.”
Nowadays, when she is not climbing cliffs or sitting on swamps for threatened species of threatened Aotearoa, Toki lives in Canterbury and works as a CEO of Forest and Bird (or “Twig and Tweet”, as she calls him). Forest and Bird was established a century ago as an independent organization to act as a voice of nature in New Zealand, with employees and volunteers throughout Motu working in a variety of environmental projects in the community and landscape. Regardless of who is in government, Toki says the organization always wants to work together to find solutions to environmental issues.
That said, Toki adds that the current government’s focus on growth at any cost has been a challenge to work. The Government of the Coalition introduced the Fast Trail Approval Accountannounced climatic targetsproposed New Mines on conservation landrefused to prohibit Vesting from the deep sea and reduce financing to a multitude of climate -related programs. It is a destructive approach that It makes no sense to Toki. “It seems that nature is canceled,” she says. “We have an asset that delivers income to New Zealand, and this is our natural world. People don’t come here to see shopping malls.”
She knows better than most critical things, chewing the fact after the fact about the dangerous state of our natural environment. Currently, New Zealand has 4,000 threatened species, with 900 of them “on the edge of a cliff.” We also have the highest extinction rate in any country and the highest proportion of threatened species anywhere on the planet. She adds that the Conservation Department should protect all our native creatures, while also eradicating the pests and keeping a network of visitors from thousands of kilometers – all with a “shameful” budget that is “significantly smaller” than the city of Christchurch council.
Toki says he wants a “unlike government mindset” that prioritizes and protects our natural environment for centuries coming. “Irreversible and short -term destruction that belongs to the New Zealanders who may not come for more generations, it’s theft, right?” She says. “We are stealing our grandchildren, and I do not believe that governments have the right or the mandate of doing so.”
This is where the endangered species of extinction to oteroa comes in. The series of documentaries uses humor and heart to make New Zealand fall in love with nature, with the enthusiastic “Toki nerd” nerd providing the perfect sheet for the reluctant boy’s adventurer in the city of Assadi. Although they didn’t know each other before the show, Toki says she and Assadi quickly got along – although they struggled “as a brother and sister” until the first season. “We’re on a keel yet now,” she says. “Pax understands, he fell in love with nature.”
Being chased by seals on the coast of Kaikōura or looking for black coral in Fiordland, it is not easy to logistics in some of the most remote places in New Zealand. The filming days are long and tiring, with the crew carrying 30 kilos of camera equipment in the oceans, mountains and forests. After climbing Mount Heale and Mount Hobson in the Hauraki Gulf episode, Toki suffered Achilles problems for months, while a next episode captured in a state of exhaustion after traveling a swamp in search of some Australian and indescribable Bittern – “the hardest thing for us ever.”
Like those complicated little bittern, threatened creatures do not give two jokes about the production schedule of a TV show, and the unpredictability of locating these animals can be a challenge. In the first season, Toki and the team spent several days in Rakiura looking for Hoihō, and were filming their sad goodbye when two penguins simply walked on the beach in front of them. This season, a trip to Fiji in search of rays of Mantra was unsuccessful until the moment when Toki’s bags were packed. “We were waiting for the boat to collect us and they saw one,” she recalls. “The next thing was like ‘right, tools down, cameras, come on!’”
Toki expects the series to help “turn around” and encourage New Zealanders to connect and protect their local wildlife. She firmly believes that if we do not know what we risk losing, it is difficult to care, and the threatened species of Aotearoa are an opportune reminder that New Zealand’s identity is based on their relationship with nature. “New Zealandes have this intrinsic connection with our natural world that is different from any other country,” she says. “For the New Zealanders, nature is our church. It is our sense of spiritual connection, our sense of oneself.”
Toki is hopeful for a third season of threatened endangered species Aotearoa-Although next time, she thinks she will try to be a little more suitable for winning those endless hills. As she ends our zoom call to collect flies to her son’s pet frog, she says it is a privilege to tell the stories of New Zealand’s threatened creatures, and prides himself as the program pushed her out of her comfort zone. “It’s not easy to be on Togs or a diving outfit in this age and at the stage of my life on prime time, or sweating a hill somewhere,” she says.
“But I will do it for nature, and I will do it for the people who love nature.”
Species threatening to the Walks on Mondays at 7:30 pm on TVNZ1 and are broadcast on TVNZ+.
