Bruce Curtis The impossible Predator Free 2050: A balance of cruelty, a post-colonialism
This presentation explores how a hierarchy of animal species normalizes the eradication of feral animals (Clark 1999; Curtis 2002, 2018; Major 2024), and the sanctification of native animals in Aotearoa New Zealand. The result is a balance of cruelty wherein tens of thousands of feral animals, mainly mammals, with a high capacity for suffering (Singer 1976, 1979, 1985) are exterminated in the putative interests of dozens of native animals, mainly birds and frogs, with a low capacity for suffering. Predator Free 2050 codifies this balance of cruelty. It anticipates the extermination of introduced mammals, designated feral (rats, ferrets, stoats, weasels, and possums and, if public opinion can be thwarted, cats). In practice, Predator Free 2050 is an impossibility: undermined in the short-term by cost constraints and socio-technical limitations; undermined in the long-term by climate-change and the likely influx of new invasive species. As a result Predator Free 2050 is best understood as an eco-nationalism (Ginn 2008) or as a post-colonialism which chastens its colonial past.
Shinya Uekusa, Tyrone Barnard, Steve Matthewman, Christine Stephens, Fiona Alpass The intersection of rural inequalities and resilience: The experiences of rural informal caregivers during the pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand
This study explores the intersection of rural inequalities and resilience experienced by older informal caregivers in Aotearoa New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal caregivers in rural areas, who provide care for family members, friends and neighbors, faced heightened challenges during the pandemic. These challenges were driven by increased care demands coupled with reduced access to essential health and social services, further exacerbating pre-existing rural inequalities. However, despite these hurdles, many participants demonstrated remarkable resilience, with relatively positive experiences emerging from the study. Our findings highlight that rural informal caregivers – many of whom are accustomed to managing everyday vulnerabilities – exhibited a form of “earned strength” in the face of the pandemic. This resilience, observed amidst significant structural and systemic disadvantages, aligns with broader disaster research, which suggests that rural populations, through their ongoing navigation of routine hardships, may develop a unique preparedness for crisis. This paper will seek to deepen our understanding of how rural inequalities shape, and at times strengthen, resilience among informal caregivers. By focusing on the adaptive strategies and social networks that enables caregivers to persist, we aim to contribute to discussions on rural health disparities, caregiving challenges and community resilience in times of social disruptions.
