Update:
I have successfully re-entered modern civilization! Our group spend four days in Mahu Whenua, a mountainous terrain much separated from the nearby cities of Wanaka and Arrowtown. We spent four nights in a field smack in the middle of multiple peaks.
The land of Mahu Whenua has not always been considered one parcel. It was originally four different sheep farms, purchased at different times by music mogul Mutt Lange and his then-wife, Shania Twain. After they divorced, Lange put a covenant on his property called a Queen Elizabeth II Trust. Each QE2 trust is a private agreement not involving the government, but it protects the land until the end of time and cannot be undone if ownership changes hands. While Lange and Twain owned the land privately, they built a few different cabins and huts on the property. It was in these huts that we spent four nights.
The first hut was not actually built for human habitation but was an active wool shed. Most of the farms had been destocked, since sheep have a very harmful effect on natural alpine grass. The few sheep flocks that remained are shorn in a large barn with an open upper level. The first two nights, most of our group slept on mattresses on the shearing floor with windows permanently open to the cold mountain nights. A lucky few, including me, slept in a solar-powered cabin, a ten-minute hike away from the wool shed. We cooked all our meals in the wool kitchen and spent most of our time climbing, exploring, and stargazing.
Not all of our time was spent in goofing off. We stayed on Mahu Whenua to assist the University of Otago in their conservation projects. Otago is located in Dunedin, and we met the two faculty who would be accompanying us during that time. Christoph is a doctor of biology who was sampling streams to determine how healthy they were. By measuring the number of invertebrates (ie, bug larvae and worms) that live in the stream bed, scientists can determine if the invasive algae species of Didymo was harming stream ecosystems. His colleague, Janice, is a doctor of botany who is collecting beech seeds. The beech forests have been receding in the mountains, but simply planting the seeds does not result in viable seedlings. The trees require the spores of a fungi called Mycorrhizae to grow and mature.
The first two days, the entire group went to multiple different stream sites. We used kick nets and wading boots to collect samples for Christoph's team. On the third morning, nine students and Ian left for the North Ridge cabin, which was roughly five miles from the wool shed but a very long uphill hike with heavy backpacks. They continued sampling streams at higher altitudes. Myself and four other students stayed behind with Kim to set up seed traps with Janice, exploring beech forests and running through streams with our friendly sheep terrier Gus. The seed traps were actually tents with the bottoms cut out, hung upside down from tree branches.
Lessons from Mahu Whenua
I think the most striking thing about Mahu Whenua is the way it completely makes you change your own perception of your place in the world. In society, we remove ourselves so completely from Nature. We get rid of animals and bugs that are "pests," clean and remove all wild plants from our living spaces, and picture ourselves as separate from the natural world. In the mountains, you are forced to live in the landscape. We slept in structures, but the structures were well integrated into the alpine fields. Every single day was spent outside working with the restoration projects, and every single day we learned that we were there to serve nature, not the other way around. We were not there to tame the wildlife; the wildlife was there to teach us how to appreciate its life and the space we share with it. We must treat all landscapes and ecosystems with respect; to do this, we must first learn to respect that we are as much a part of the natural world as any other animal or plant species. This lesson is difficult to learn exploring cities or spending a few hours at different ecosanctuaries. I am therefore very grateful for the complete emersion into ecology and Mahu Whenua.
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