When the voice of the land is lost

Protecting Aotearoa New Zealand's wild places is a global responsibility. Anyone from anywhere in the world can legally make a submission to help protect this paradise from commercial development. Please use your voice and click the link below to make a submission before the July 2nd deadline.

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When the voice of the land is lost

We are Tāngata Whenua
people of the land,
bound to its care.

A duty that will be stripped to its bones
As a price is put on paradise.
They call it
bits and bobs

But the West Coast podocarp forest
remembers itself differently
a carpet of moss so thick
it swallows footsteps
Rimu rising like slow prayers
rain writing itself
again and again
into wet earth

And Lewis Pass
Stone and wind made visible
Mist moving through jagged Alps,
rivers speaking in broken light
beech forests holding their green
silence as if silence were a duty

somewhere
a line is drawn through it all
paper edges slice
through canopy shadow
without asking the wind

But mother earth
does not sign her rights away
She holds on through ancient roots,
Through silver fern spirals
through podocarp
through the silent flight of native birds
as their wings are tested
through breath itself
still rising

But if the voice of the land is lost
if the last great forests fall
If the real wells of wealth run dry

who will lose?