Andrea Hamilton Davis: Risk Tolerance as a Leadership Skill - An Interview

She broke a legendary New Zealand endurance race record. She completed Eco Challenges in places like Australia, Patagonia, and Borneo. Then she walked into an even tougher arena: environmental governance. We’re joined by Andrea Hamilton Davis, an American expat who’s lived in New Zealand since the ‘90s, to unpack how a life built in wild terrain can shape the way you lead, decide, and collaborate as an environmental policy decision-maker.

We get into what adventure racing really entails: navigation, discipline, and the ability to keep a team moving when everyone is sleep deprived. Andrea shares the practical side of performing for days with minimal rest, and how risk tolerance changes when you’ve spent decades managing real-time hazards in mountains, rivers, and storms. 

Andrea explains why she went back for a graduate degree in environmental policy, what it’s like to serve on a regional council responsible for water, air, land, and farming impacts, and why trust and relationships matter as much as data. We also dig into unintended consequences in regulation, and why unlimited GDP growth collides with planetary boundaries. If you care about conservation, clean water, climate resilience, and how change actually happens, this conversation offers both realism and agency.

Subscribe for more stories at the intersection of wilderness, leadership, and environmental action, share this episode with a friend who cares about the outdoors, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. What’s one belief you’ve changed after spending time in wild places?

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Hosted by Jeannie Wall and Cat Coe

Audio production by Cat Coe

Music by Holizna Radio (intro and segues) and BOPD (conclusion). All music sourced from freemusicarchive.org.

www.broadbeta.com

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Cat 0:00

Welcome to the Broad Beta Podcast. I'm your producer and co-host, Kat Co., and I'll be hosting with Broad Beta co-founder Jeannie Wall today. Today's guest is Andrea Hamilton Davis. She's an American woman who has lived in New Zealand since 1990. Andrea holds a master's in environmental policy and management and a master's in landscape architecture with a background in anthropology. During her early years in New Zealand, Andrea was a sponsored adventure racer and won eco challenges in both Australia and Patagonia. She holds the record for the iconic Kathmandu coast-to-coast race. If you're not familiar with this multi-sport race, it crosses New Zealand from the west coast to the east coast of the South Island. And it features running, cycling, and kayaking sections over a total of 151 miles. She did all of that in just 12 hours, nine minutes in 1997. Andrea has since retired from racing, raised three kids, and now works as a decision maker in her region's government, trying to push the country toward better environmental policies and outcomes. Without further ado, let's welcome Andrea.

Jeannie 1:29

What I think is really interesting for the broad beta community to hear from you is just more about your life as a woman who's done a lot of things in the mountains, albeit a lot of racing with adventure racing and other things. And then had a family, and you know, your kids got in the mountains. And I mean, I'm just really curious to talk to you about sort of your expat life and then how you kind of segued that into your love of the environment and concern for it, and really being vulnerable to get back into the degrees you got and then politics, let alone fighting the environment in that um in that realm.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Well, politics, politics takes a certain level of courage.

Cat 2:15

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Cool.

Growing Up Outdoors And Leaving Home

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Okay, well, um Andrea Hamilton Davis, and I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, and then went to high school in Manhattan, spent my summers running around on the rocks of Maine and Vermont, and skiing and water skiing and horse riding and all that stuff, playing the woods. Um and then I lived out in the Hamptons for 10 years. I had a landscape design business. Uh I went to UVM and studied water resource management. Um, but I was also living down in Long Island in the summers, so I decided funnily enough, I moved back to East Hampton full-time for a guy, and I ended up at Stonybrook, and I did an anthropology degree, which was a little bit off track, but it but anthropology does link in with the environment hugely, because let's face it, we're people on the planet doing what we do.

Jeannie 3:16

Well, and I think the whole the whole thing about the Anthropocene is something I mean, you you're at the heart of it. I mean, because that that is that has given us sort of carte blanche to just rape and pillage, if you will, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And I well, Western, yeah, and philosophy, so all the different philosophies. So studied that went around the world on a ship uh semester at sea, was University of Pittsburgh, and I was lucky enough to do that and went to 11 different countries while I had um water resource management in my head. Got to see that, and then because of the surfing scene in Montauk, I I ended up going to Hawaii for a windsurfing trip. And I met this Kiwi guy. Um, I was like, oh yeah, interesting. And back and forth, back and forth. You know, back in those days it was the 80s. Um New Zealand was just such a a rare place, but I had happened to have studied it at environmental studies at UVM, and we did it as a um case study on erosion, which was really interesting. So I just kind of had this vision of New Zealand. I thought, oh, that's interesting. So anyway, I came down and did a lot of climbing, mountaineering, whitewater kayaking. Um, and I always I always rock climbed when I was young because I I worked at a camp, an outdoor adventure camp in Connecticut. So started sort of rock climbing there. I mean, the rock climbing in New Zealand is not great, it's better in Australia, but it is just just over there. We just fly up there and climb. So that was um the decision to leave the US. That was the first kind of life decision. Um I was well, it was 1990, so I was 26 or seven. And then um ended up, you know, getting married, having three kids here, um, did my landscape design here. Uh back in those days, hardly anyone was doing it. Um, but I I eventually put my career on hold and raised these three kids. And you know, they didn't have a television, we didn't believe in television. We did we were outdoors all the time. And I was a professional adventure racer, so um we were sponsored to race and we did a lot of local sort of Raid Galois type races here, Southern Traverses, and then we went and we joined in the eco challenges, did a lot of them, and we were quite successful as Kiwis because we were good navigators and we just get the job done. Can I interject for a second?

Finding New Zealand Through Wild Places

Jeannie 5:54

How how you start we being you and a team?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, so my my husband at the time, Keith Murray, myself, Andrew Murray. So we are the record holders of the coast to coast. So we at the time we were the fastest people when this was before kids or during kids. Well, I raced a little bit before kids, but it really started internationally after kids. Well, because it was the way I could actually get away and get a nanny and have a holiday, and I'd have to go like adventure race for six days to get a holiday. But um most people don't call it a holiday, they call it a culture. Yeah, I raced during the boys' so my first child was born, and then I did the coast to coast, and I did really well. I mean, I broke the record and I I didn't find it that hard actually, which was a little bit of a like And can you just give a brief outline of what that race is? So the west coast of New Zealand's a wild place of the beach, and you and then there's a mountain range, big mountain range, the Southern Alps, and then it it comes down into the plains. So you start in one day, 6 a.m. You run from the beach onto your bike, and you bike to the highest point you can in the mountains, and then you run through the mountains, and you get back on your bike, you need a support crew, and you you bike to the a river, the Waimakari River, and then you paddle for about four or five hours downriver racing down this river, braided river. So you have to read the river, and then you bike into town, into Christchurch. So that took 12 hours, 12 hours and nine minutes for me. How many well it doesn't really matter mile-wise, because I think it's hard to well to drive it, it takes you four hours. It's more just the route. It was it's a really cool race. It's still going today, but you can do it in many different ways. You could do it as a team, you could do it two days. Um, the longest day they call it is the one that people strive for as if you're challenging yourself as an athlete. You have to be able to run over rough ground quickly, which as a kid, because I had, I could. And it's off trail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The biking, the road, it's road biking, so you have to be competent on a road bike. There's no drafting the second half, but the first the first bike ride, there is drafting, so you need to understand all that nonsense in in uh bunches, and you have to be in the first bunch. So you have it's it's a bit of tactics, you know, whatever. Anyway, it's a bit of blah blah blah. But the I mean, so after that, I my child Charlie was one, and then we got invited to do eco challenge Australia in Cannes. And so we did that and won that, and that was pretty wild. You know, Australia's there's a lot of poisonous things like plants, animals, crocs, like you name it, it's there. It's we did that with our Kiwi teammate and an American guy who got the sponsorship

Coast To Coast Race Explained

SPEAKER_01 9:09

basically, and then we went to Patagonia and did that. It was an awesome eco challenge, beautiful place. Um, awesome whitewater. We had these little mini pack wraps, basically, back in the day. That was the start of it. Um, amazing terrain. And and then we got the last one we did was Borneo, which was when Mark Granette was just trying to launch Survivor. I remember that one. We were like the test. And we let's face it, adventure racing back in those days, there was a hell of a lot of irresponsible race directors. Mark Grenette was not one of them, he was actually quite a good one, and he did care about the safety, but there are some things that we did, you know, like getting into a flooded river in was it Borneo? I mean, talk about contaminants and flooding and river and you know, trees in the river, and you're in it, you've just got your backpack and your life jacket, it's ridiculous stuff. Uh, those the those adventure races, they're still going, and people are doing them. And it's I I I think it's a good thing to do. It's not good for your body to go without sleep, but as far as having to figure out there's no point getting across the finish line by yourself, you've got to get across the finish line with the others. And this politics game is bullshit. They don't realize you actually got to get everyone to agree or at semi-agree, because all this stuff is bigger than us. Even even racing is bigger than you. I mean, it feels like it's just me and I'm the most important person in the world. It's not really. Um, that's that's kind of what I mean. I never really took it that seriously because I'm not that selfish. I'm just not a selfish person. So I couldn't really be like, oh, hang on, I've got to get the whole family to, you know, fit in with my racing life.

Cat 11:02

So I want to hear more about what you're referring to with politics, but I also want like if you didn't really take it that seriously in terms of like competition for yourself or being the winner, what was it that compelled you to keep doing adventure races and to travel so far to do them and and fit them into your life between kids and all that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Well, I think it was a a good mental break from the the doldrums of literally just cleaning and doing laundry and raising a family. Um, and the chat the courses were challenging, really cool. And I mean, I mean, because I could horse ride and I could absail and I can rock climb. So the skill set was my skill set. So I thought, oh, this is really cool. Like we can do this whole race, yeah, and all these things aren't really freaking me out. Because I think for a lot of teams, some of these new activities just use so much of their energy from mentally freaking out about it that they they would they would run out of energy, they wouldn't get to the end, you know?

unknown 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So for us being Kiwi, and I was like, I mean, I guess I'd only been here for 10 years then, none of it was really like that hard. It was just, oh yeah, so we just have to climb that mountain and come down the other side and then jump in a kayak and off we go, which is kind of what we do here anyway.

Cat 12:31

Uh-huh. And were your parents super outdoorsy? Like, did they I I know you said you were running around in the woods a lot as a kid, but did they like teach you that sort of resilience in the outdoors?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

No, we all our summers were spent at these awesome summer camps in Vermont and Connecticut and places. Um, so we were really into the water sports and the um, you know, mainstream stuff. And then at school, you know, you just played your ball sports. But the adventuring, like going beyond, was didn't start until I came to New Zealand, really. I I suppose because I'm a curious person, I'm not someone who's gonna go like some of these people or career athletes that do this coast to coast race for 10 years in a row. I'm like, whoa, I would never do that.

Eco Challenge Wins And Risk Reality

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Like, I just am much more curious. I just want to do new things and go somewhere different. And so going to different countries and racing is awesome because you've got that, but you've got the culture as well, and you've got the language and you know the different maps, and you're kind of going, wow, this is this is a lot more interesting. Yeah.

Cat 13:49

Were you training a lot when you were doing the races?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, you need to be as fit as you can possibly be because it's so tiring not sleeping that if you're not fit as well as not sleeping, you're really grind to a halt. But if you're fit and you just don't sleep, you can do things to just keep your body going for six days.

Jeannie 14:13

You did that with how old was your first child when you were racing? Like you had a kid while you were racing.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, yeah. I had Charlie. I did Australia and Patagonia when we just had John. Then I had Craig. I mean, essentially, like you were really young when we went to Borneo.

Jeannie 14:32

You're not sleeping at all. Like you're not I mean, I know a lot of women who do those races, and I know a lot of women who have kids and still are very, you know, athletic and very into their thing, whether it's climbing or whatever. But but those races, and I've only done a couple. I mean, the sleep deprivation, I always after I did a couple, I was like, you know, I'm gonna save myself because this is so unhealthy. I'm gonna save my sleep deprivation for when I'm in the mountains and I have to not sleep, like it's an imperative to get through. Yeah. Because it was like it felt so just draining in a way that was really unhealthy. But here you are, you're a mom. You're you know, you're already probably not sleeping well. Maybe that trained you up. But how did that all fit together for you?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

I have a lot of energy, I've always had a lot of energy. I will go to the end. Like I and I sleep really well, but I don't need a lot of sleep. I do need a lot of sleep now that I'm older, I need more sleep. But when I was young, I mean, Jesus, in New York, we used to just we'd do all nighters all the time. Wow, not a problem. So I suppose if the activity is interesting enough and you're doing, I mean, I I ate coffee beans covered with chocolate. That was how I stayed awake in these races. And we had a sleep, like the first night we'd stop for one hour, the second night we'd stop for one and a half hours. We'd always elevate our feet. We had a program because we knew you you do have to stop, even if the other team's going in front of you. That's okay because you've just slept for two hours, so you've got money in the bank. And we knew that at night you crawl, like the pace you go at night is so slow. So slow. So we were just really smart about that. Yeah, as a result, we would beat teams that never stopped to sleep. They were faster than us, but they never stopped to sleep, and then they just completely blow up at the end.

Jeannie 16:28

Did you appreciate, like you said, you appreciated the culture in some of the places you went to? Did you appreciate the mountains you were traveling through, even though you're, you know, it's hard to do that when you're so sleep-deprived, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

It was, yeah, that was a bit of a bummer in a way, because half the time you're away, it's dark. So the the stage of the race that you remember the most, obviously, is like the sunset and then the day and then the sunrise, you know, like, but look, we rode our bikes so many times

Sleep Deprivation Strategy And Team Dynamics

SPEAKER_01 16:59

at night, you wouldn't know where the hell you were. And thank God we had this one friend, Neil Jones from Fakatani up north. He's a hunter, incredible navigator, because that was always hard. If you didn't have a good navigator, I mean, we did pretty well, like most of the time we were fine. But man, there's nothing bad for a team when you think you're going the right direction and then you're not going the right direction, and the motivation just drops, and everything, everyone gets bit down. And look, it's the same with policy, strategy, and policy with government. You think you're going the right direction, and you you read a paper and someone's done a study, you realize, oh, we have not gone the right direction. And it's you know, the whole planet's kind of thing. Oh, we really didn't get it right, did we? No, you haven't got it right yet. And um, let's hope you can get it right. So, yeah, the the racing piece was, I feel a phase. I mean, after Borneo, I think that was it. I I stopped racing because I got pregnant with Fiona and had her, and then I didn't really race anymore at all. We just literally did Keith kept racing, so I was babysitting at home all the time, and um we just did like family trips, and by then, you know, once your kids are like 10, the activity level just goes up and up and up, and so then you know, but we started racing, the kids started racing XC mountain biking with me because I race X E mountain biking, and so we were away every weekend racing, you know, the national series, and so you you you you know, you kind of what do you call it pivot? So you go into a different thing, and so we got really into mountain biking, and we always did a lot of skiing because we live near the mountains, so you know that's why the kids just have a great background of nature, outside, very good high-risk situations. I mean, I've realized now I'm in a I'm in a council of 14 people, but not everyone has the same risk profile, like my tolerance for risk is so high because I just go, oh, well, that's not a problem. Like, nothing's gonna go wrong there because I know that I can, but I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people in this world, and they do end up in politics, very low risk. They would every they see everything as a risk, they see you know everyone is kind of um a bad player, and I'm thinking, wow, you really don't have any trust in yourself or in the world around you. And I'm thinking, this is really hard to make decisions like this.

Jeannie 19:52

Yeah, I'd love to back up just a little because I think that's sort of the point of what is inspiring about your life, but also what we're really trying to inspire in all of us, especially as women, is just you know, your connection and through all through the adventure racing, which is really hard, but also very much like raw, wild kind of um it's it's less of a sport than I think of other things that are competitive sports, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yeah.

Jeannie 20:20

It's more like in some ways that I mean, yes, it's structured race, but like an expedition climbing where you just, you know, you don't you've got to navigate, you don't have all the answers, you don't know what's gonna happen, you don't know the weather, you're out there for a long period of time, you're sleep deprived. Um

Motherhood, Training, And High Risk Comfort

Jeannie 20:36

and you know, I just think so many people, like you just mentioned, and sadly, those are the ones probably in politics running are, but um, they don't have any of that sense of what it's like to be outside their comfort zone. And I love that, you know, you you parlayed this whole thing of your love of mountains and you know wildness and racing in that context, but with your kids, with getting them out, and then transitioning into politics. And as a woman, I I don't know what New Zealand's like, but you probably were certainly a bit of a minority in the adventure racing. I think the teams had to have some women, right? One, yeah, it's usually three men, one woman. Usually. You know, what's it like having transitioned into politics? You haven't really talked about what your role is, but you know, the your environmental passion for clean air, clean water is what you're working on, even in the council.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So I got a master's of landscape architecture in the middle of getting divorced. And I thought, oh, well, this is really interesting. Learned some good stuff there. Then I at 58 or something, I thought, you know, I really want to know how we got ourselves into this very awfully balanced breaching the planetary boundaries kind of situation. So I went back and got this Masters of Environmental. policy and management because I really wanted to understand like why does the UN conventions why don't they work? You know, why can't the world get together? You know, why are these monopolies doing colonization and mono crops and all this? And so just to back up, just so we're clear, because you did the degree, you got the degree in New Zealand? Yeah, both. So I did the anthropology at Stony Brook and then I did landscape architecture masters up in Auckland and then this master's right here in Christchurch.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Which at the time the government, I didn't realize it, but she uh Jacinda Adur, an awesome lady who I've actually met by the way in the lounge and at the airport, um she made it freeze-free for any higher level uh master's program that had to do with planning, environmental management, a whole range of skills that we needed to make good decisions. So basically I've trained myself to be a decision maker in the environmental management space and policy. Because I don't know if you've ever tried to read government policy, but it's written by people who do not think holistically they do not think of the entirety of the environment or how these things are interlinked. It is literally like a legal document to get that those words translated to how we do this on the ground in 3D is what I what we're currently working on here in New Zealand.

Cat 23:28

So are you working mostly on policy in New Zealand? Are you working on policy in the US or are you like globally focused?

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Um what you would call a state uh government like a so below the central government then there's the um regional governments which is Canterbury. Uh-huh so I'm in the middle there and then below us is the city all the city councils like the mayor and the city state representative yeah and we and our whole our whole point is the environment pretty much and we also do the public transportation piece because that's a regional piece. So all the regional councils are basically responsible for water air land um

From Degrees To Regional Government

SPEAKER_01 24:12

so the farming you know our farmers bless their hearts have some problems with effluent dairy effluent dairy's our biggest industry and tourism's our second biggest industry so it's there's these little tensions it's a skill I'm telling you to sit in a room with 14 different people who come from all different backgrounds like I am an I am just an outlier but then if you surround yourself with other people who just climb and you know guides like you get so um blinded you think oh well everyone thinks like this or you know why can't we just make the environment better? It's like well you need to go out into the real world and hang out with some of these people who grew up in an apartment or you know they've been a dairy farmer their whole life and really understand it.

Cat 25:06

What perspective do you think you've gained by doing that by like hanging out you know trying to make decisions with these people that are coming from a very different a very different perspective like what do you think you've learned about the world and about people well I can tell you this they think they're right someone else thinks that they're right probably both of them are right but because it's such an interconnected web of how we are on this planet there's other things that are in the middle of that so so it's not like anyone's wrong like it's yeah like it's so it's so much more nuanced than that people are complex.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah yeah and what's also complex is and it's this kind of takes me back to that adventure racing piece it's all about relationships because here's the thing you you're faced with a decision so we you know we have council meetings and we have to decide and you don't have all the information you don't have all the time so the decisions aren't perfect. So there's always going to be a middle ground and you like you could stick to your guns and be like I don't agree with this and and you could vote against it. But actually you you need both parties need to come together you need to decide what's going to be best at the time for the region. Now all this stuff changes as well so the plans we made land and water plans 10 years ago that we're still using and they've all they're basically don't work because 10 years ago as you guys know we know a lot more now about everything everything our health the way people you know eat and drink and sleep and the way we have a relationship with the soil even like the stuff and the ocean like what we know so much more now about the ocean we that was a big mystery and we still don't know everything. So it's this very messy type of work decision making I have to say and it's relationship heavy if you don't trust the people that you're in the room with that you're gonna suffer and and everyone will suffer. All your constituents will suffer because you won't be able to make any decisions.

Jeannie 27:31

So as as a lot of CEOs you hear them saying well you know the best thing you can do is just to move forward make a decision move forward because if you if you're stuck in this oh you know I don't know it it just all falls in around you yeah I think uh given where we're at I'd ask two questions one is do you feel like you're on a parallel with the US in terms of the environmental issues and the government interaction and and support or not support and also with that like you know we're we're we're paralyzed right now because it is all about power struggle right we we aren't coming together at all and so what do you what do you use from your past or just what you've learned you know your experience and as a and specifically if it matters as a woman you know how how do you get these people to trust each other in this room like we have no trust anymore over here yeah you know and obviously on your team you had to trust each other as a team i i ask them questions and i i genuinely want to know why they believe that I want to understand their belief system um I mean here it's a lot less complicated the cultures you know we've got the English settlers so Anglican and then the Maori and the um Pacific Island sort of um cultures and but now we also have Chinese and we have Indian so a lot of Asian influence so I suppose we are quite diverse but in government it's still white men women are getting a foot in still mostly white women and so I I do point out our similarities and then the differences and I have the ability because I I'm the only one who didn't grow up here in New Zealand my perspective is so different from that I mean I grew I was in Manhattan like at Studio 54 in the 80s literally going to Madison Square Garden and seeing the stones like every year.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

I mean so I I can I can tell them and I did say today we were at a meeting with the dairy company and we were talking about the quality of our water and at the moment like we have amazing water okay coming out of the tap and I said to these guys everyone in the room I said you guys realize every boardroom in America everyone drinks bottled water most people drink

Trust, Nuance, And Making Imperfect Calls

SPEAKER_01 30:03

bottled water in the world and they were like oh yeah that's right we are one of the few countries where you perfect water coming out of the tap but we have a tension because we have too many dairy cows on the plains and the the soils are very porous so the the pea is going through and there's elevated nitrates the jury's not out on if they cause bowel cancer or not there was one study not everyone agrees anyway so it's always this tension and we're pretty good at making decisions in the council chambers and then going and having lunch and talking to each other like human beings. We're pretty good at that but there are still people who will always feel paranoid. Okay so paranoia is growing the I I think in the US when I go back to the US to visit my mom I see Americans are a lot more paranoid than they used to be and that's comes from whatever news channel you're following. And and again if if someone just tells if someone's in your ear all the time with oh you know of course it's like these conspiracy theories you soon start to be you don't trust anyone and you you are paranoid and you think that big brother is watching and they are and you know but the the one thing I do know because I'm watching it so our system our capitalist system which we're all part of the market knows best blah blah blah anyway now they have been trying to sell us this GDP must grow GDP must grow well if you look at it and you can Google it and the history of GDP across the world yes it was we boomed up 80s fantastic 90s and not so bad. Now we're on just a steady we cannot get it to grow it's just slowly moving down down and it is literally because the earth and the oceans cannot support it anymore. So you can only take so much out and then you will you just cannot have this unlimited GDP growth constantly it it's a falsity and they're selling it to us it's not possible. If you look at it there's a there's a line on a um graph and it just let just slowly slowly slowly we just can't quite get it to do what it used to do.

Jeannie 32:27

It's a big reality pill literally that ecosystem services which we've taken for granted can't keep giving so one of the things people over here tend to try to convince us of is especially in the outdoor industry right is like the more the more people we get into the in the wilderness the more people we get outside the more they'll appreciate it and they'll want to do something about it to save it. And you know I actually don't believe that anymore at all but but I think there is a question of how do you make that connection that you just described I mean I I do because we did big study on this um when I did my master's and the grassroots movement environmental movement is the most effective way for change and we we looked at a UN convention here here and there you mean just in general everywhere everywhere okay um and and there's some big examples in in Kenya with the um green belt movement and and in South America in Ecuador where they actually managed to pass law against more um crude oil extraction and it was these were indigenous groups um or just you know farmers in Kenya and it's it's a tricky piece but it but it it's it's thinking in a collaborative way it's like it's not just about you it really isn't it you know you're just a little teeny piece in all this yeah and certainly being in wilderness that that's what you feel if you would notice anything you know if you're aware of anything you realize how small we are we're just we're just atoms floating around like we're nothing really I mean yes mean that much but but of course you know capitalism makes everyone think they mean everything so that we just consume.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

So well I I know I I do think we need to look at it all very skeptically and I can tell you the younger generations are they want to know what's in the food. We just ate it like because we thought oh of course that wouldn't poison the food that we're eating well those days are gone people do not believe that anymore and which is great and they and they don't want to wear plastic so when you study environmental management systems and and you could look at I mean Patagonia is a great example they still will say some of these waterproof fabrics that they have to use are not sustainable. They you know they use forever chemicals the the people who make these fabrics in third world countries are actually getting sick. I mean so it's the externality of all these things that we want you know as a rich country and we and that is being exposed I mean and you know Facebook and all that social media it's a pain in the ass and and they're evil in their own way but but if it nothing else we are so much more aware

Water Quality, Dairy Tensions, And GDP Limits

SPEAKER_01 35:27

it's great.

Jeannie 35:28

Yeah but we are we are pretty selfish like even in the outdoor realm you know I mean uh you know promoting all of us getting more outside in in wilderness and stuff we need this you know I mean I worked at Patagonia for 16 years I mean yes yes we know we knew they know you know it's hard to go back to something that doesn't perform as well yeah well let's let's just say if you're gonna do it make sure you buy the the best made coat you can buy and make sure that that zipper can be repaired. Yeah yeah because because we're gonna buy them just don't buy 10 of them yeah how do you feel as a woman in New Zealand you said you're still a minority in politics and such but do you feel like there's more quality there nah it's still mansplaining because here's the thing also age now if we could get young people into politics then we'd really be humming but the young people don't want to do it so literally the average age of a politician is probably 70.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I mean they're old people I'm 62 but how are we gonna get the perspectives of these young people I you know we can go out we can talk to them and I I mean luckily I have three young people in my life who you know I and they're friends so I'm aware I'm so curious to hear about more specific issues that you're working on we're doing a plan change which is 10 years ago we had a land of water plan that said if you interrupt any groundwater you can't well unfortunately we are Christchurch was built on a swamp because that was the easiest place to put the city so when we had an earthquake we had a lot of liquefaction which is shake shake shake and all this water and sand comes out so that was one lesson don't build on a um a wetland but the other one is every time we build anything anything road building railroad we hit groundwater and because in the plan it said that you can't it's just been really difficult to rebuild the city. So we're we're looking at changing that but on the flip side of that every time you move that lever some of the lever will also move so there will be unintended consequences to this plan. And that is the problem with setting rules because you might be setting a rule here that helps this but that same rule could get manipulated by a company or a lawyer and and then you could have an adverse effect you know these grassroots organizations they need to they need a little more um legitimacy and that is the game of politics the successful grassroots groups have found a way to make themselves not mainstream but they understand the language of policy I mean Greenpeace I you know that's an example but they understand the policy they understand the legal terms they understand that they might need to hire some lawyers because you can be a grassroots group and you can scream and cry and kick about emissions but you've got to understand the system that you're trying to make change in and once you do understand that system then you might be able to make a little change and you and the changes are not big the changes are little they're they're you know 1% 2% but it is a change. You know you have to be patient.

Jeannie 39:17

It's a very it's a the patience is a virtue I tell you because you do have to be patient and and you realize I like your patience I mean I think over here it feels really defeating right now just even know what to do and to have any hope but but little by little on and on a grassroots level you know we can all maybe make a difference or at least try.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah it's not a perfect world it is messy you're not gonna get everything you want you're gonna get very little of what you want probably but you do need to move things forward and and you have to trust the fact that science and the planet I mean look the planet doesn't need us the planet wants to get rid of us and actually the planet will get rid of us so I I don't think we should get too worked up about it. That's I mean I always thought well when the Jehovah's Witness come knock on my door and I go well yeah we deserve to die I mean look what we've done like of course make it make it stop I mean we just don't want it to be like super painful for the people we love before we all go down.

Jeannie 40:23

That's the big meteor perfect so you know the the planet is finding ways to recover and and it and yes it's gonna be really unpleasant and I always think what we should be doing is we should be teaching these young people how to clean up after floods how to clean up after fires we need to teach people skills like real physical skills of how to live in a world that is not it's gonna be messy super messy on

Grassroots Change And Rethinking Consumption

Jeannie 40:54

that note like an adventure race it's like an adventure race it's like yeah how do you get clean water and you're sleep deprived and you're seriously how do you how do you approach that I I'd say last lastly for us with your children they well my daughter hates it when I talk about it so I you know like they're fully aware but they did see me go back and get a degree so that I could do this job as a politician.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

So they're like okay well there's agency here so you do have agency you know if you have the skills you should be using them to influence people and to be honest yes it is bad but then you could equally look at it and say well it's also the world is better I mean I'm in the film society and I went and watched a film about um France in it was 1572 and I'm thinking holy shit it is a lot better now than it was so um things are actually better but what we have to do is we've got to give these young people the chance not to get captured by social media and you know they need activities they need to have clubs they need to join clubs you know they need to be outside playing and and the education system probably has the power to influence so helping the education system the teachers the camps anywhere you can influence you should be influencing you know get yourself some knowledge and then and then try to help other people um go forward yeah we don't get to grow up as uh feral children anymore like we did the the little ones no the helicopter parents is a thing yeah we just uh I feel like that was such a gift and that just doesn't exist anymore but well that's the paranoia I think that people are paranoid and about their kids running around outside I I don't know I I luckily this surf community I live in the kids are out the kids are total free range here like and that is why New Zealand is awesome and that is partially why I thought now if I'm gonna raise kids this is the place to do it they can free range I mean it's like hey let's start a camp and and just say oh we're just gonna take your kids and make them do nothing. Yeah they're just gonna run outside and you just like they'll come back and do no activities I mean that's all we all did you know you just created your own they probably pay they put the parents would probably pay them to pay a lot okay cat maybe we'll run beta camps for you yeah where we do nothing camps we just do nothing in the woods yeah yeah do nothing in the woods no fun no mirrors whatever it is miraculous that we have become mankind has made it this far and we always feel like you know we're at the most important period of time but I can tell you they probably thought that in 1950 yeah so every generation has its time and its challenges and I I think we all and and my kids included I tried to tell them hey don't take yourself too seriously and don't take life too seriously and have a sense of humor because that's about the only way you're gonna get through you know or or just play regular music and smoke joints all day.

Cat 44:44

I mean you could do that as well I said that to my fella we need to be smoking joints and playing regular music to get through this day and then we'll just

Teaching Resilience, Free Range Kids, Humor

Cat 44:58

hopefully you're not having to smoke joints and listen to regular music to get through the day but regardless thanks for listening to Brock Beta Podcast today. If you want to check out more of our stories, recipes, gear reviews, podcasts, check us out online at broadbeta.com and if you liked what you heard today leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Music in today's episode was by Holisna Radio for the intro and the segues and you're listening to B O P D in the background right now all music was sourced from Freemusicarchive.org