E ngā rau rangatira mā, e kui mā, e koro mā, e huihui mai nei i tēnei wā, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou. Nau mai, haere mai rā ki Te Whare o te Kawana Tianara o Te Whanganui-a-Tara.
I wish to begin by specifically acknowledging: The Right Honourable Sir Jerry Mateparae, Chair of the Antarctic Heritage Trust; The Right Honourable Helen Clark, Patron, Antarctic Heritage Trust; The Honourable Paul Goldsmith, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage; Francesca Eathorne, Executive Director, Antarctic Heritage Trust
Tēnā koutou katoa.
It is a great pleasure to be amongst some of our country’s leading conservators, academics, and long-time supporters of the Antarctic Heritage Trust as we mark the launch of the crucial new Conservation Management Plan.
The time spent curating this new plan speaks to the diligence and care with which the Trust undertakes its challenging and ongoing work of preserving the five historic Ross Sea huts and their contents. You are tasked with not only the physical conservation of structures in some of the harshest conditions on earth, but you also shoulder the kaitiakitanga – the guardianship – of the history and mana which each of these sites hold.
I gained an even greater sense of just how extensive and profound this work is when Dr Davies and I visited Antarctica last year. We were honoured to explore Shackleton’s, Hillary’s, and Scott’s Discovery huts during our time there. I found it a deeply moving experience - to stand almost literally in the footsteps of those great explorers. One cannot help wondering what was going through their minds as they anticipated the immensity of what lay before them – apprehension of course, but surely also excitement, that thrill of setting out into a truly unknowable beyond.
It is a true credit to the work of the Antarctic Heritage Trust and your expert team of conservators that I was so vividly transported – met as I was on arrival in the huts by the sights and smells preserved just as they would have been over a century ago. The impressiveness of this work is underlined by the sheer extremity of conditions in which the Trust operates. Your team of experts work on the very edge of the world, applying specialist techniques to preserve the record of these most daring of human endeavour.
However, your organisation is not one that looks only to the past. You are committed to encouraging the next generation of polar explorers through your Inspiring Explorers programme – allowing young people from a range of backgrounds the opportunity to travel to Antarctica. This programme teaches our young people to be curious about the unknown, to take care of our precious and fragile natural environment, and to test their own limits of endurance. I know I certainly left Antarctica with a greater sense of wonder about our world and inspired by the sheer strength of the human spirit.
Australian explorer Douglas Mawson put this idea best when he said: “We had come to probe Antarctica’s mystery, we had hoped to reduce it to terms of science, but there was always the ‘indefinable’ which held aloof, yet riveted our souls.”
The historic sites which the Antarctic Heritage Trust oversee are a lasting record of our innate human desire to confront the unknowable. It is to the credit of your organisation that you have harnessed, not only the power to preserve history, but also used it to inspire our future generations.
As patron-in-chief of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, and as one-time Antarctic explorer myself, it is an honour to officially launch this vital new plan which I am certain will ensure the preservation of these important historical sites for generations to come. I wish you all the very best for its enactment, and thank you for your ongoing work to educate, protect, and promote the wonders of the Great White Continent.
Kia māia, kia manawanui, kia kaha e koutou. Kia ora huihui tātou katoa.