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Newsroom
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Our history is on life support. Don't pull the plug.
History as a discipline and a profession is under attack on various fronts. In the United States, the Trump administration is engaged in a frontal assault on key historical institutions, threatening the independence of the National Archives and requiring the Smithsonian museums and the National Parks Service to present an uncritically patriotic version of America's past. In New Zealand, historical scholarship is being undermined in another way: death by a thousand cuts, which can be as devastating as all-out war. Long-term underfunding has combined with recent cutbacks to reduce both job opportunities and research infrastructure for historians. History departments in universities are being cut back. At Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, four senior historian positions —those who have produced and maintained identity-affirming projects such as our national dictionary of biography – are now being made redundant. Archives New Zealand, where government records are made available for historical research, has seen job cuts, reduced opening hours, and the closure of a successful records digitisation programme. Funding for historical research has also become harder to find, especially since the Government ended the Marsden Fund's support for the humanities. Historians in government departments and universities work for the people of New Zealand. Thanks to past investment by governments of both the left and the right, big national resources such as Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and NZ History are free to the public. As well as showing the past is crammed with diversity and talent in unexpected places, such open-access resources subvert the paywalls of private publishing and family-history companies. To let these publicly funded and enormously popular sites 'wither and die' through lack of ongoing support is not only a huge loss of accessible and accurate information about our history, but also a shameful waste of past investment. More than a generalised attack on the humanities, the destruction of our historical infrastructure is a specific attack on those whose jobs it has been to chronicle and make sense of the past at a time when the world has become more volatile than it has been for decades. We are also living in an age of unprecedented technological change in which generative AI is moving swiftly into education, intellectual production, and creative industries. History can help us to understand these changes and to keep our bearings as the world is transformed around us. It is perhaps not surprising that attacks on history should be happening now. Very simply, historical understanding is an antidote to the poison of extremism that is seeping into political systems around the world. It is a threat to those who seek to stoke division and undermine democratic rights. Historians know that our liberal democratic system of government, underpinned by human rights, is fragile, hard won, and not very old. It is not a 'natural state' of things or the end point of some evolutionary trajectory. We know the ways in which power can be wielded to punish peoples, destroy cultures, and erode freedoms. Equally, the study of history provides inspiration for solutions to the ills of the world, from dictatorships to the housing crisis to individuals' feelings of being untethered from belonging. It demonstrates that even the most inhumane of systems can be defeated, that slavery can be ended, that the subjugation of women can be opposed, that colonised peoples can win self-government. By explaining the historical forces that have shaped communities and identities, historical scholarship can also help us to better understand those with whom we share our country and our world. We all have a stake in ensuring there is adequate investment in historical research, writing, and education, whether it be in universities, government agencies, schools, museums, or local communities. If the study of history is allowed to die, our society and political culture will be the poorer for it.
1News
08-08-2025
- 1News
Christchurch man jailed for poaching nearly 1500 sea cucumbers
A Christchurch man has been sentenced to 18 months jail for poaching 1432 sea cucumbers. Jason Murray Nix, 55, learned his fate in the Christchurch District Court yesterday for two charges under the Fisheries Act. He was also banned from all fishing for three years. Nix received a total sentence of 30 months' imprisonment as he was also sentenced on separate police charges. His equipment, including two boats and a car, was forfeited to the Crown. In November 2023, Nix and another man were stopped by police on other issues, and his vehicle was impounded due to other legal matters. During a search of the car, 1022 sea cucumbers were found and Fishery Officers were contacted. Nix was caught again in December 2024 with another 410. The daily limit per person for taking sea cucumbers is 50. ADVERTISEMENT A Fishery Officer. (File image). (Source: 1News) Fisheries New Zealand district manager in Marlborough/Canterbury, Stuart Moore, said Nix had more than 20 times the daily limit for sea cucumbers in his vehicle, likely bound for selling on the black market. "Our investigation found strong electronic evidence of illegal seafood sales," he said. "To buy sea cucumbers commercially can cost up to $80/kg. Black market sales of sea cucumbers can be as little as $25/kg, seriously undermining the legitimate market." Brown sea cucumber Stichopus mollis on the bottom of Browns Bay in Auckland. (Source: Moore urged members of the public who were aware of, or have been offered, cheap sea cucumbers to report suspected illegal activity through the ministry's 0800 4 POACHER number (0800 476 224). The other man stopped with Nix was yet to appear before the court. ADVERTISEMENT Only one species of sea cucumber was common around the New Zealand coast, stichopus mollis, or rori, according to Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
Miami Herald
05-03-2025
- General
- Miami Herald
Dad and son stumble upon ‘one of the most important finds of all time in Polynesia'
On a remote island of New Zealand, a dad and son searching for salvageable wood noticed some 'strange-looking' sticks — and found a significant historic site. Follow-up excavations uncovered hundreds of wood pieces, rope fibers and possibly sail fabric from an old canoe. Last fall, Vincent Dix and his son Nikau passed by a creek near their home on Chatham Island, a remote archipelago off the eastern coast of New Zealand's main islands, and noticed several wood pieces sticking out of the sand, according to Wharekauri Farm Waka, a Facebook account dedicated to their finds. '(It was) pretty much the normal day really, sort of just thought it was a bit of rubbish wood lying around,' Vincent told Te Ao with Moana, a New Zealand TV news show, in a March 3 video. But to Nikau the wood seemed 'unusual,' 'strange-looking' and 'very well made,' he said in the video. When the pair returned to the site, they found a more elaborately carved piece and knew they'd found a waka. 'Waka is the Māori word for canoe,' according to the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. The term can refer to a wide range of boats made by 'ancestors of Māori' over the span of millennia and includes rafts, dugout canoes, double-hulled canoes and others. New Zealand's Ministry for Culture and Heritage verified the family's finds — which already included roughly 20 canoe fragments — in mid-January and sent a team of archaeologists for follow-up excavations. As archaeologists and volunteers began sifting through the sand, they were stunned. More and more wood fragments kept surfacing. Photos shared by cultural officials in a March 4 Facebook post show the pile of partially excavated wood. Wood is generally considered a rare material for archaeologists to find because it easily disintegrates over time unless preserved by water. 'We can't overstate how incredible it is,' the excavation's lead archaeologist Justin Maxwell told The Guardian. 'It is by far the most important discovery in New Zealand, possibly Polynesia, and it will go down as one of the most important finds of all time in Polynesia.' Before they began excavations, archaeologists believed 'the holy grail would have been to find some of the sail, or some of the twine that held things together, or some of the rope or the caulking,' Maxwell told Te Ao with Moana. 'We found all of that. It's completely blown our minds …. This is, by far and away, the most amazing excavation I've ever had the privilege to work on.' So far, excavations have uncovered 'more than 450 waka (canoe) pieces and other items of interest,' cultural officials said in a March 4 news release. Photos show some of the 'incredibly rare' braided ropes and textile finds. Much about the historic canoe remains unknown, including its age, place of origin and the original shape of the boat or boats. Excavations at the site on Chatham Island have finished, but officials plan to continue analyzing and preserving the finds. 'To find all of these components preserved is incredible and it's going to help us learn so much more about Polynesian waka technology,' Maxwell told The Guardian. The Chatham Islands are about 500 miles southeast of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
