Editor's letter Dec12-Jan13

"You’re launching an eco magazine? Oh, you should talk to my cousin, he’s building wind turbines / recycling roof tiles / teaching kakapo chicks to use Twitter…” We’ve had lots of conversations like this in the past few weeks. As our magazine has come together, it has seemed like everyone these days is thinking green.

Not so long ago if you’d told someone you were into sustainable living you’d have got a funny look. You were probably some kind of ‘greenie’ with a suspicious beard who’d rather cuddle a kauri than do a hard day’s work. But today’s sustainable folks, we’ve found, are more likely to be making money from their passion and want to talk about things like online peer networks, milk yields, megawatt hours…

It’s also interesting how few of these folks call themselves ‘green’. Time and again as we spoke to the inspirational people in these pages we heard the same story: “I’m not a greenie, I’m just the practical type”. From dairy farmers, to eco paint makers, to coastline clean-up crews, it was the same: “I just got sick of looking at the mess / there had to be a better way of doing it / it simply saved us money being green.”There’s no doubt environmental thinking has become more mainstream. Though of course with that have come dozens of pretenders – the greenwashers and shady operators trying to cash in on a public that cares. Which is why, along with bringing you stories about impressive people and handy how-tos, we’re also going to do our damndest to deliver authoritative information that looks past superficial claims and uncovers misperceptions. 

Of course, we’ll be doing a lot of learning ourselves as we go – as you’ll see from the page at the back of the mag, '10 things we learned making this issue'. There were plenty of discoveries as we researched but personally, my biggest surprise came from finding that New Zealand is home to a shy bird called the spotless crake. Now, I thought I knew my birds, but I’d never heard of spotless crakes, which have been turning up lately on dairy farmer Andrew Hayes’ land. They’ve been drawn there by the healthy lake environment Andrew has created by managing his fertiliser use better – which, of course, has in turn sent his milk production skywards. It’s a great story; a classic win-win, where the environment and business have gone hand-in-hand, and the charming little birds seem thrown in as a bonus. I mean, who even knew we had crakes in our lakes – spotless or otherwise? For all I know they’re already busy on Twitter, hanging out with their friends the kakapos.

Greg Roughan
Editor, Green Ideas magazine