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New Zealand: Without Harakeke
Description
Why did a Māori chief ask a visiting English botanist how it was possible to live without a plant — and what does his bewilderment reveal about a civilisation built entirely around a single organism? How did European demand for rope fibre trigger the Musket Wars that reshaped the political map of Aotearoa before formal colonisation had even begun? And what does the ethics of harvesting — never cut the rito, never remove the heart — tell us about a way of relating to the natural world that almost disappeared and is now being slowly, carefully restored?
Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of New Zealand and harakeke — the sixty varieties, the musket trade, and the plant that is simultaneously a lily, a philosophy, and a family...
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In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
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