Climates of Change: A Tuatara’s-Eye View

Anna Boswell

doi:10.3390/h9020038

Abstract

The tuatara or New Zealand “spiny-backed lizard” (Sphenodon punctatus) is the sole surviving member of an order of reptiles that pre-dates the dinosaurs. Among its characteristics and peculiarities, the tuatara is renowned for being slow-breathing and long-lived; it possesses a third eye on the top of its skull for sensing ultraviolet light; and the sex of its progeny is determined by soil temperatures. This article unravels a tuatara’s-eye view of climate change, considering this creature’s survival across geological epochs, its indigenous lineage and its sensitivities to the fast-shifting conditions of the Anthropocene. This article examines the tuatara’s evolving role as an icon of biodiversity-under-threat and the evolving role of zoos and sanctuaries as explicators of climate change, forestallers of extinction, and implementers of the reproductive interventions that are increasingly required to secure the future of climate-vulnerable species. It is also interested in the tuatara as a witness to the rapid and ongoing human-wrought climate change which has secured the lifeworld reconstruction that is foundational to the settler colonial enterprise in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Linking this to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Wai 262 report (Ko Aotearoa Tēnei, 2011), the article considers what the tuatara teaches about kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and climates of change.

Highlights

Linking this to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Wai 262 report (Ko Aotearoa Tēnei, 2011), the article considers what the tuatara teaches about kaitiakitanga and climates of change
On 12 January 2020, the New Zealand Ministers for Education and Climate Change announced that climate crisis would begin to be taught in New Zealand schools during the forthcoming academic year
This news made waves across the globe, with The Guardian, for instance, pronouncing that the proposed changes to the school curriculum “will put the country at the forefront of climate crisis education worldwide” (Graham-McLay 2020). It is distinctly unremarkable for Aotearoa/New Zealand to be heralded as a global leader in respect of environmental matters

Summary

Introduction

On 12 January 2020, the New Zealand Ministers for Education and Climate Change announced that climate crisis would begin to be taught in New Zealand schools during the forthcoming academic year. This news made waves across the globe, with The Guardian, for instance, pronouncing that the proposed changes to the school curriculum “will put the country at the forefront of climate crisis education worldwide” (Graham-McLay 2020) In one sense, it is distinctly unremarkable for Aotearoa/New Zealand to be heralded as a global leader in respect of environmental matters. I suggest, the story of the tuatara teaches that the term “biodiversity”—with its “normative loading” and underlying anthropocentrism (see Mathews 2016; Rose 2013)—fails to describe an indigenous world and is inadequate as a category of thought and criterion for action in preparing for what lies ahead Before turning to these tasks, I excavate and flesh out some contextual matters that pertain to Aotearoa/New Zealand —and the settler south more generally—as a locus for advance and advanced consideration of climate crisis

Negative Exceptionalism

Climates of Knowledge

Through the Third Eye

Beyond Biodiversity