kyouda my niece Harriet drew this for me
only thing is we all know Earth doesn’t
really look like this looks more like
this because unfortunately in this era
of the Anthropocene we’ve done this you
don’t need to see these graphs to
understand that in the last 50 years our
human impact on Earth has been so
significant it’s called the great
acceleration only it’s not great not for
Earth and not for us
things are so compromised with our
well-being that we cope by
disassociating and our minds from Earth
in fact a lot of the time it feels like
we’ve forgotten we actually depend on
earth for life and we lack a healthy
cultural connection with earth our
ancestors may have had this and many
indigenous peoples still do and yet we
have diminished the importance of this
and we are left with nothing but a
relationship of convenience my work as
an occupational therapist over the last
20 years has focused on how what we do
makes us feel and it wouldn’t it would
be safe to say that what we’re doing
isn’t making us feel that great at the
moment so I’ve been hunting for an
answer and everywhere I find waste waste
is an extraordinary indicator of where a
I’ve come to see waste it’s the missing
out on opportunities to build a vital
and healthy relationship with earth and
the thing is that waste isn’t just a
waste of earth’s resources it’s also a
waste of ourselves and our capabilities
so I started
working with waste in 2000 I started an
enterprise called rekindle that focused
initially on wood waste returning to
live in post-quake Christchurch in 2012
I felt compelled to respond to the
large-scale hasty wasteful demolition of
thousands of buildings that meant so
much to so many people from 2012 to 2015
this incredible team and I ran a
furniture manufacturing workshop and
sold furniture in order to divert more
timber from waste we sold hundreds of
chairs tables and stalls and then used
the offcuts to make other objects this
all happened at a time of relative chaos
against all odds and to be honest it was
taxing and took all of our resources we
struggled to break even but it was
successful in other ways particularly in
terms of raising awareness of demolition
waste and reuse there was our whole
house reuse project this involved over
250 people from across New Zealand in
the world coming together to reuse one
beloved residential redzone home that
would have otherwise been wasted these
are just eight of over 400 treasures
that were made from that one home this
taught me the power of craft and that
valuing the resources we have can enable
huge outcomes and even though I done all
this work and that reusing waste is
definitely constructive I still felt it
wasn’t enough of a solution so I thought
long and hard about what the opposite of
wastefulness would look like we see this
in the circular economy in cradle to
cradle design and other approaches that
consider the full lifecycle of earth’s
resources and what I found was
resourceful nacelle thie relationship
with earth and the thing is our true
human nature includes an extraordinary
ability to be resourceful and this
ensures our wellness and Earth’s at an
individual level resourcefulness feeds
our inner resources it gives us the
tools that strengthen our sense of self
and our identity it makes us feel
capable adaptable and resilient that we
can cope with whatever life or earth
throws at us and every single one of us
has a unique set of any resources when
our resources are not feeling strong
when we feel unwell we feel weak fragile
and that our resources are unreliable
and that is a great source of anxiety
that is when life feels beyond our
resources being resourceful includes
knowing and valuing the resources you
have inside you and around you the
resources and other people that you can
value and Trust and the resources in the
special place where you love
resourcefulness gives us great and very
special knowledge about the ecosystems
we live with them and this enables us to
live in a regenerative way
resourcefulness is a complex interaction
between our and their resources and
earth’s resources upon which we
desperately depend it is made up of a
set of skills that enable us to meet our
needs and live lives we have reason to
value without damaging this beautiful
planet these skills are so many but
include things like being able to grow
your own food being able to build warm
and dry homes being able to make the
clothing and footwear you need and other
necessities the problem is that so many
of these resourceful skills are at risk
of being lost a large subset of these
vital skills falls within the domain of
traditional craft and it was through
learning traditional crafts that I came
to understand the magic of turning
nothing into something and how greatly
that contributes to our well-being
I lived in the UK in my 20s to 30s and
learnt a number of craft traditions the
Orkney chair was so special to me
because it struck me as being so very
resourceful all it used to use was oat
straw and driftwood because that was all
people had to make what they needed the
outcome is a stunning an unusual
practical style of furniture and one
that is so unique to that place
traditional cut craft has become so
displaced but it could not be more
relevant craft is the skilled
relationship between us and earth craft
gives us the means to harness and care
for the resources around us to create
what we need from what we have I believe
crash said at the heart of our education
and training so that we can all really
build our fount the foundations of our
well-being nowadays in Christchurch
rekindle focuses on creating
opportunities for resourcefulness we do
this by promoting craft traditions that
are inherently resourceful we ran a
workshop we will share resourceful
skills and we are building up to our
first festival called necessary
traditions in 2018 our work celebrates
how relevant the role of resourceful
craft is now and for the future as an
example we focus on simple local
resources that are in Bund and
undervalued like these cabbage tree or
to coca leaves we receive timber from
the city’s parks and show value in this
by using it for woodworking when
otherwise it would become wood chip we
use green woodworking as the tools skill
and knowledge involved are accessible in
rewarding this ancient craft gives us
the unique understanding of the special
resource and its qualities
resourcefulness provides opportunities
to come together to learn
and work alongside each other this is
essential to our well-being now and I
believe even more so in the future those
of us with barriers to work know exactly
how much we must work when it’s gone and
working manually or physically this is
also vital to our well-being and we
cannot gain this through experiences
with passive digital technology we need
manual skills to live resourceful lives
and these skills need to be kept alive
as resourceful individuals our
well-being is increased when we use all
of our capabilities as resourceful
communities we need to share resources
combine our capabilities to enable the
maximal rizal sufficiency that is
possible when we work together this
gives a vital share shared purpose that
our communities are missing it overcomes
social isolation resourceful nurse is
growing we can see this in the community
repair and reuse initiatives and
community gardens and the food resilient
snakes networks we can see this in
mutual aid networks and time banking and
community aid community owned assets
that foster the sharing of resources but
this needs to grow more resourcefulness
in our built environment as essential to
we need to look at our built space as a
resource we really need to make the most
of we need more shared use of commercial
space so that it meets a variety of
needs and resourceful nurse and business
to ensure we are resource efficient
we must stop externalizing costs like
waste pollution and the erosion of our
well-being and in the increase in
inequity and as a country those making
decisions centrally enable resourceful
nurse Bunch
during that all policy is inherently
resourceful for example in New Zealand
we need a good hard review of the
building act and the waste minimization
act as these are currently barriers to
resourceful Neuss and perpetuate a lack
of it resourcefulness is not just a good
personality trait it is an essential and
practical tool for human and Planetary
well-being it brings to life essential
concepts like the circular economy and
Kate Roth’s donut economics and we need
to see this reflected in our living
standards framework to really address
our well-being so to find the well-being
that we all crave look to you’re
resourceful self make the most of what
you have build your life on a foundation
of a resourceful and caring relationship
with earth as this is the most essential
and healthy relationship you and I have thank you
only thing is we all know Earth doesn’t
really look like this looks more like
this because unfortunately in this era
of the Anthropocene we’ve done this you
don’t need to see these graphs to
understand that in the last 50 years our
human impact on Earth has been so
significant it’s called the great
acceleration only it’s not great not for
Earth and not for us
things are so compromised with our
well-being that we cope by
disassociating and our minds from Earth
in fact a lot of the time it feels like
we’ve forgotten we actually depend on
earth for life and we lack a healthy
cultural connection with earth our
ancestors may have had this and many
indigenous peoples still do and yet we
have diminished the importance of this
and we are left with nothing but a
relationship of convenience my work as
an occupational therapist over the last
20 years has focused on how what we do
makes us feel and it wouldn’t it would
be safe to say that what we’re doing
isn’t making us feel that great at the
moment so I’ve been hunting for an
answer and everywhere I find waste waste
is an extraordinary indicator of where a
I’ve come to see waste it’s the missing
out on opportunities to build a vital
and healthy relationship with earth and
the thing is that waste isn’t just a
waste of earth’s resources it’s also a
waste of ourselves and our capabilities
so I started
working with waste in 2000 I started an
enterprise called rekindle that focused
initially on wood waste returning to
live in post-quake Christchurch in 2012
I felt compelled to respond to the
large-scale hasty wasteful demolition of
thousands of buildings that meant so
much to so many people from 2012 to 2015
this incredible team and I ran a
furniture manufacturing workshop and
sold furniture in order to divert more
timber from waste we sold hundreds of
chairs tables and stalls and then used
the offcuts to make other objects this
all happened at a time of relative chaos
against all odds and to be honest it was
taxing and took all of our resources we
struggled to break even but it was
successful in other ways particularly in
terms of raising awareness of demolition
waste and reuse there was our whole
house reuse project this involved over
250 people from across New Zealand in
the world coming together to reuse one
beloved residential redzone home that
would have otherwise been wasted these
are just eight of over 400 treasures
that were made from that one home this
taught me the power of craft and that
valuing the resources we have can enable
huge outcomes and even though I done all
this work and that reusing waste is
definitely constructive I still felt it
wasn’t enough of a solution so I thought
long and hard about what the opposite of
wastefulness would look like we see this
in the circular economy in cradle to
cradle design and other approaches that
consider the full lifecycle of earth’s
resources and what I found was
resourceful nacelle thie relationship
with earth and the thing is our true
human nature includes an extraordinary
ability to be resourceful and this
ensures our wellness and Earth’s at an
individual level resourcefulness feeds
our inner resources it gives us the
tools that strengthen our sense of self
and our identity it makes us feel
capable adaptable and resilient that we
can cope with whatever life or earth
throws at us and every single one of us
has a unique set of any resources when
our resources are not feeling strong
when we feel unwell we feel weak fragile
and that our resources are unreliable
and that is a great source of anxiety
that is when life feels beyond our
resources being resourceful includes
knowing and valuing the resources you
have inside you and around you the
resources and other people that you can
value and Trust and the resources in the
special place where you love
resourcefulness gives us great and very
special knowledge about the ecosystems
we live with them and this enables us to
live in a regenerative way
resourcefulness is a complex interaction
between our and their resources and
earth’s resources upon which we
desperately depend it is made up of a
set of skills that enable us to meet our
needs and live lives we have reason to
value without damaging this beautiful
planet these skills are so many but
include things like being able to grow
your own food being able to build warm
and dry homes being able to make the
clothing and footwear you need and other
necessities the problem is that so many
of these resourceful skills are at risk
of being lost a large subset of these
vital skills falls within the domain of
traditional craft and it was through
learning traditional crafts that I came
to understand the magic of turning
nothing into something and how greatly
that contributes to our well-being
I lived in the UK in my 20s to 30s and
learnt a number of craft traditions the
Orkney chair was so special to me
because it struck me as being so very
resourceful all it used to use was oat
straw and driftwood because that was all
people had to make what they needed the
outcome is a stunning an unusual
practical style of furniture and one
that is so unique to that place
traditional cut craft has become so
displaced but it could not be more
relevant craft is the skilled
relationship between us and earth craft
gives us the means to harness and care
for the resources around us to create
what we need from what we have I believe
crash said at the heart of our education
and training so that we can all really
build our fount the foundations of our
well-being nowadays in Christchurch
rekindle focuses on creating
opportunities for resourcefulness we do
this by promoting craft traditions that
are inherently resourceful we ran a
workshop we will share resourceful
skills and we are building up to our
first festival called necessary
traditions in 2018 our work celebrates
how relevant the role of resourceful
craft is now and for the future as an
example we focus on simple local
resources that are in Bund and
undervalued like these cabbage tree or
to coca leaves we receive timber from
the city’s parks and show value in this
by using it for woodworking when
otherwise it would become wood chip we
use green woodworking as the tools skill
and knowledge involved are accessible in
rewarding this ancient craft gives us
the unique understanding of the special
resource and its qualities
resourcefulness provides opportunities
to come together to learn
and work alongside each other this is
essential to our well-being now and I
believe even more so in the future those
of us with barriers to work know exactly
how much we must work when it’s gone and
working manually or physically this is
also vital to our well-being and we
cannot gain this through experiences
with passive digital technology we need
manual skills to live resourceful lives
and these skills need to be kept alive
as resourceful individuals our
well-being is increased when we use all
of our capabilities as resourceful
communities we need to share resources
combine our capabilities to enable the
maximal rizal sufficiency that is
possible when we work together this
gives a vital share shared purpose that
our communities are missing it overcomes
social isolation resourceful nurse is
growing we can see this in the community
repair and reuse initiatives and
community gardens and the food resilient
snakes networks we can see this in
mutual aid networks and time banking and
community aid community owned assets
that foster the sharing of resources but
this needs to grow more resourcefulness
in our built environment as essential to
we need to look at our built space as a
resource we really need to make the most
of we need more shared use of commercial
space so that it meets a variety of
needs and resourceful nurse and business
to ensure we are resource efficient
we must stop externalizing costs like
waste pollution and the erosion of our
well-being and in the increase in
inequity and as a country those making
decisions centrally enable resourceful
nurse Bunch
during that all policy is inherently
resourceful for example in New Zealand
we need a good hard review of the
building act and the waste minimization
act as these are currently barriers to
resourceful Neuss and perpetuate a lack
of it resourcefulness is not just a good
personality trait it is an essential and
practical tool for human and Planetary
well-being it brings to life essential
concepts like the circular economy and
Kate Roth’s donut economics and we need
to see this reflected in our living
standards framework to really address
our well-being so to find the well-being
that we all crave look to you’re
resourceful self make the most of what
you have build your life on a foundation
of a resourceful and caring relationship
with earth as this is the most essential
and healthy relationship you and I have thank you
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