Foraging foreigners go nuts for free food

New Zealand is fast becoming a world-leader for living off the land – but are foreigners taking advantage, asks James Pasley.

NEWZealand has long been seen as the land of milk and honey by visiting tourists: and now many intrepid hunter-gatherers are taking advantage of the country’s plentiful lakes and orchards to travel on the cheap.

These foraging foreigners often rely solely on free food – taken legally – to get by while touring the country.

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.

‘‘We occasionally collect mussels from the beach, like tuatua, pipis, cockles or green mussels. 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.’’

Foraging maps, like Google’s Fruit and Food Share Map show fruit and nut trees, vegetable and community gardens, kai moana and herbs and our tourists are embracing them. 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 in New Zealand for the second time travelling the country along the 3000km Te Araroa Trail, and is creating a free ‘‘treasure map’’ called Te Araroa 2017 Eat The Road Project where he identifies edible foods and medicinal plants for anyone to 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.’’

While 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 shopping at supermarkets. Instead, she foraged for fruit and berries, accessed community gardens, small town maraes and road stalls, she said.

‘‘I’ve survived. But I also know a lot of people around New