Foraging foreigners thrive
Survivalist visitors take budget travel to the next level, James Pasley reports.
New Zealand has long been seen as the land of milk and honey by visiting tourists: and now many intrepid hunter-gatherers are taking advantage of this country’s plentiful lakes and orchards to travel on the cheap.
These foraging foreigners rely solely on free food – legally – to get by.
While local authorities up and down the country move to tackle problems caused by freedom camping, questions are being raised as to whether low-income Kiwis should get first dibs at freebies.
German tourist Tobias HIuchnik and his girlfriend Imke Liebau are in New Zealand on a working holiday visa for a year. They supplement their diet with fish they catch, and oranges and avocados picked from public trees.
‘‘I occasionally collect mussels from the beach, like tuatua, pipis, cockles or green mussels,’’ HIuchnik says. ‘‘They’re endemic to New Zealand and taste great. There are also plenty of spots to catch good fish, too.
‘‘We have previously found public avocado and orange trees and picked some fruit but that’s very rare.’’
Tourists are embracing sources such as Google’s Fruit and Food Share Map, which show fruit and nut trees, vegetable and community gardens, kai moana and herbs across the country. According to Google Trends, search interest in the map was the highest ever in November 2017 and New Zealand has the highest search interest for ‘urban foraging’ of any country in the past five years.
French tourist Vincent Piton, 32, is travelling along the 3000km Te Araroa Trail and creating a free ‘‘treasure map’’ – the Te Araroa 2017 Eat The Road Project – where he identifies edible foods and medicinal plants anyone can use.
‘‘I don’t want people to go in a place and harvest the plants. This is about supporting the place and identifying the plants.’’
Although he hasn’t travelled in the South Island yet, in the North Island he harnessed fern fiddleheads, kawakawa leaves, karamu berries, flax flower nectar, kelp, sea lettuce and mushrooms. He also enjoyed horopito, ‘‘a very powerful native wild pepper’’.
It’s not just foreigners who are foraging. New Zealander Ebony Moore has travelled across the country for the last two years and in 2017 she managed to avoid often taken
I don't want to see our plant life torn to pieces for free foreign backpacker food. Former Milford track guide Daniel Ford
shopping at supermarkets. Instead, she foraged for fruit and berries, accessed community gardens, small town marae and roadside stalls.
‘‘I’ve survived. But I also know a lot of people around New Zealand who have gardens. If I was a foreigner it might be a bit harder.’’
Although she knew about what sort of foods could be found in the wild or gardens, many people she encountered weren’t as sure. She had considered doing a foraging education course but they were quite expensive, and this was where Google’s New Zealand Fruit and Food Share Map came in handy.
However, some New Zealanders fear backpackers will plunder resources at the expense of Kiwis living in poverty who rely on foraging to survive.
Former Milford track guide Daniel Ford said it was important to protect New Zealand’s natural food sources.
‘‘There are thousands of New Zealanders now living in poverty who rely on foraging to survive. We don’t want thousands of backpackers plundering these finite and limited resources.
‘‘I don’t want to see our plant life torn to pieces for free foreign backpacker food. We need to preserve what we have.’’
University of sustainability adviser Canterbury Matt Morris said foraging was not a New Zealand-specific phenomenon, it was international and should be welcomed.
‘‘The ability to forage some areas for food and fibre seems to me to be a basic human right. Where we find competition for a small resource, I think that supports the argument to expand the resource. Welcoming travellers, and showing some hospitality in this way should be encouraged, not discouraged, in my view,’’ he said.
In the meantime, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis has invited 22 mayors to a meeting in March to discuss the freedom-camping situation.
Visitors camping out on sites lacking proper facilities have prompted numerous complaints about noise, litter, human waste, overcrowding, and blocked access to public spaces. This led to freedom camping being temporarily banned at Waiwhakaiho River mouth in Taranaki this week.
Davis said he also wanted to take a broader look at the issue. Over the past decade, the number of international visitors doing at least some freedom camping during their stay had risen from about 30,000 to 115,000 annually.
‘‘For tourism to continue growing in New Zealand and remain successful over the longer term, we need to listen to our communities and get this right.’’