The Strength of the Tōtara Tree
by
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Joseph (Hohepa) Harawira was born in Whakatāne, New Zealand, on 13 March, 1946. As a child, he lived at a time where Māori traditions and post-colonial needs were combining to change the fabric of Māori society. He was part of a big family and tried to meet his traditional obligations to them, tempered by living in and adjusting to, a new world. Joe first worked at the Whakatāne Sawmill in 1963. SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons) was formed in 1988. Before they could convince anybody to take action, Joe and SWAP first had to prove to authorities that sawmill workers were sick because of their exposure to chemicals on the job. It was an uphill battle that should not have been this way. Tired and very ill, Joe took redundancy in 1992 after almost 30 years’ exposure to the poisonous cocktail of chemicals used at that time in sawmills around New Zealand. Joe worked for SWAP, three days a week until the end of 2016, in terrible pain. He was fond of saying ‘if I hadn’t had this (cause), I’d have ‘snuffed it’ long ago.’ When we first started looking at chemical poisoning, it was all about the damaging effects of PCP. There are tests that can show if you were exposed to PCP in the last few days or perhaps in the last week, but they can’t tell you how much PCP you’ve been exposed to and how it’s affected you. How would we ever have been able to prove we were poisoned, if PCP hadn’t been contaminated with dioxin? They wouldn’t have listened to us. His concern for the future was also because it has now been shown that the effects of dioxins and other poisons change mitochondria in human DNA which can cause a variety of illnesses for up to nine generations from a parent’s exposure to toxins. We had our first documentary in 1995: The Poisoning of New Zealand. What they did was they came and saw us, saying they had to select four people to be tested and the documentary wasn’t going to be aired unless the tests showed elevated levels of chemicals. Earlier in 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency had found that it is so toxic to humans, there is no safe level of dioxin in a person’s blood, so although the men were confident that they had been poisoned, a lot was riding on these results. The Institute of Environmental Science and Research said New Zealanders’ blood levels of dioxin were usually between 8-13 picograms per gram of blood. Each man gave a litre of blood to be tested. Lewis had a level of 45.9 picograms of dioxin per gram of blood, seven years after leaving the sawmill industry. Curtis had a level of 51.9 after eight years and Lees had a level of 53.9 picograms of dioxin per gram of blood. This was new scientific evidence that surely could not be ignored. On 7th September, 2012 was Joe’s Queen’s Service medal presentation at Government House in Wellington. I flew into Wellington to stay with my son. On the morning of the 7th, I woke early, had a shower and got dressed in my suit. My wife and family were all in the kitchen having breakfast. I was in the bedroom sitting on the bed in the dark when this sensational feeling and presence occurred. The room felt as if it was jam-packed with all my mates, whānau that have passed on and I just couldn’t stop the tears. I was overwhelmed. My daughter came in, saw me bawling my eyes out, hugged me and calmly said to me ‘are all your mates here, Dad?’ I just hugged her and said yes. It is typical of Joe that in an article about accepting the award he is photographed at a contaminated site near the old Whakatāne sawmill, a crumpled drum lying in shallow water alongside overgrown weeds on one riverbank and rubble on the other with the sawmill in the distance. It clearly illustrates the only reason he accepted the award; it’s for the workers and for the polluted land. It’s August 2016 and The Green Chain documentary is screening again. Joe is to take a final roadshow out to the people to register the interest of ex-sawmill workers and their families who can seek support from SWAP. He hides his worsening health. Even with the migraines I have now, I have bad migraines, eh and I know how it starts. When I feel it coming on, I go to bed, eh. I just sleep it off, then start all over again the next day. I just learned to go to sleep, even with all my pains. Most of my mates turned to marijuana and stuff like that but I absolutely stayed away from that and ah, don’t ask me how, but I did. Joe has reflected on all of the changes he has had to adjust to and it has been a long, long journey. He must have been very, very tired of it. It’s not until he starts to describe his spiritual journey that he seems to be properly at peace with it all, as though he knows he has fulfilled his mission now and has seen enough of what comes next to accept this, too.
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About the Book
He considered himself an ordinary, uneducated Māori man but Joseph Harawira, QSM, was a tireless worker who became spokesperson for an organisation called SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons). SWAP relentlessly presented their evidence to authorities, for work place poisoning causing ill health, for thirty years until those authorities finally listened. Post-colonial New Zealand had seen huge developments in industry and farming alongside extensive use of toxic chemicals in forestry, polluting the land, waterways and poisoning people. Joe mainly worked at the Whakatāne sawmill between 1963 and 1992. The two main chemicals of concern were PCP (pentachlorophenol) and dioxin. Still working and in declining health, Joe had been looking for the 'right' person to record his journey. A series of unexpected events led to his choice of author, a retired Pākehā woman, a stranger with a Master’s degree, with whose partner he had recently reconnected through work. Joe grieved the loss of mentorship by Māori elders which left some Māori men feeling disconnected, sometimes resulting in violence, suicide or gang affiliation. He blamed some of this on poisons and understood there were also other factors. He wanted today’s young men to see that they too could believe in something, educate themselves and gain respect through their efforts. Joe felt keenly that even though there was some recognition of chemical poisoning in male sawmill workers, women cleaners and wives who dealt with contaminated clothing and gardens were, and still are, ignored by authorities. Ironically, sawmill work was not his first choice but events conspired to place him in a position where he could be spokesperson for the important issue: chemical poisoning of the land and of the people.
About the Author
The author retrained as a secondary school Teacher in her early forties after gaining a Master’s degree in Anthropology. While studying, she also worked to support people who live with disability and mental health diagnoses. Teaching helped hone her writing skills, rekindling her love of poetry. Health issues, her partner John’s new job opportunity and a feeling of wanting to start again, saw the couple move from West Auckland to Kawerau, near John’s family area of Whakatane. She spent almost a year with Joe in 2016, recording notes and reading information Joe gave her. Suddenly in early 2017, Joe died and she was in despair. A gap followed as she collected herself after this promising collaboration and friendship suddenly ended. There were many frustrating rewrites but she had to find her own direction, without Joe. During this time, she started up a wholesale plant nursery at home. This became an all-consuming passion that rescued her and slowly allowed finishing the book to be a reachable goal. She is collating a series of children’s stories she has written, mainly about farm life, where some of the animals explain their points of view. She enjoys solving crossword puzzles and code crackers, as well as spending time in the garden with her cat.