Practical New Zealand Environmentalism
Letters to My Brother
My sister Catherine Smith moved by scientific, veterinary and personal understandings provides a set of general outlooks and practices of hope regarding specific parts of the New Zealand environment.
These outlooks and practical actions address the problems Craft magazine editors also think crucial in our times, if their distinctive representation in this issue remain Catherine’s, the region’s and New Zealand’s.
Catherine tells of the conjuring of hopes; personal and strategically directed, to sites of change in the New Zealand context and broader vicinity. She reminds us that Antarctica is threatened directly and indirectly by climate change. In Catherine’s work the local is critical and fore grounded. Still the big picture of large changes remains in the background. She discusses legislative changes in which she participated - these too, odd mixtures of general concerns and specific interests.
She has faced considerable resistance from ‘purists’- turning- nasty, providing lessons for us too, in how to continue without losing site of our goals and originating hopes. The big picture requires practical resistive approaches for it too is produced by sets of practices and ideas. Goals, hopes, values and practical activity rightly interconnect in Catherine’s issue.
As Catherine’s brother, it is with great pride that I present this story of a person with a deep commitment to animal welfare, to multiculturalism, to the environment, community and family. The practice of hope is richly embedded in these stories of many levels. I have some brotherly pride to glow in, and for you who read it, I hope, inspiration, practical ideas, knowledge and attitudinal frameworks to consider.
This is a practical handbook and a selected autobiography with brushwork to match. The graphics are part of Catherine’s painting collections viewable at (itself an interesting organisation) and her and her husband Barry’s photography.
Yours in practical hope
Jim Prentice (co-editor Craft Magazine)