Mars Is Not Our Whenua

EDITORIAL | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA

Written by Tashi Donnelly she/her | @tashi_rd | Editor

We forget how unpoetic English can be as a language until we encounter words like ‘whenua’. Those words that say what English would need ten words to describe. Words like ‘wabi-sabi’ or ‘schadenfreude’. Translated into English, ‘whenua’ could mean ‘land’ or ‘homeland’. It could mean ‘Motherland’ or ‘Mother Earth’. ‘Ancestral land’ might come close. Another translation is ‘placenta’.  Whenua is land, but it's a word that understands what land means. 

Here at Debate Magazine, we commit to an environmental-themed issue each year, our little way of reminding each other to keep fighting for this little planet. In 2026, I want to ground myself in this issue. I want to feel the damp, warm soil, to remember my flesh as something born from the earth’s labour. I wanted to thank planet Earth, this holy gift of life that sustains us.

While billionaires fill the atmosphere with rocketship exhaust fumes in an attempt to find reflected glory in a high-profile space race, you may find yourself wondering, what’s the plan for Earth? The funding of space travel has undeniably advanced everyday life, from satellite communication to fire-resistant materials and medical imaging technology; these gains are impressive. But the scale of investment required to chase other planets, while Earth, already burning, flooding, and extractively mined, remains structurally neglected, doesn’t sit right with me. 

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word piece Whitey on the Moon critiqued US government spending on NASA during the Apollo project, while black Americans were living in poverty. Fifty-six years on, billionaires like Elon Musk set their beady eye-holes on colonising Mars, while blocking their workers from unions, giving them poverty wages, all while aggressively polluting our air and waterways, and mining our whenua to the point of collapse. 

Before we set our sights on Mars in all her crimson glory, can’t we look down at our feet? We have our planet, she’s right here, beneath us. Like a placenta, she feeds us. She grows our food, and the food of the animals we eat. The idea that we’ll one day have to leave this place to the destruction we’ve caused, WALL-E style, to make a home among hostile environments seems completely backwards. Why not now, right now, take a stand? Demand that the resources under our feet be treated with the same affection we afford a human being. After all, in te ao Māori the rivers, mountains, and forests are considered living relatives with their own mauri and dignity. A concept that proves vital in the protection of our precious land and water, which is threatened by the National Government’s lust for mining.

The 2026 New Zealand general election is scheduled for Saturday, 7th November. I encourage you, dear reader, to think beyond the scope of yourself and remember that the ground you are standing on is not stable. There are no safe places when our environment collapses. There is no colony on Mars. What we do have is real-world policy. And right now, that policy is shifting. 

This year, our own government rejected every recommendation from the Climate Change Commission, including stronger emissions reduction targets, even as scientists warn that floods, fires, and rising sea levels are accelerating. Plans to fold the Ministry for the Environment into a mega-ministry further risk diluting environmental oversight at the very moment we need sharper accountability. Meanwhile, more than half of the bills considered by this parliament have been pushed through under urgency, often bypassing the select committee process that normally allows experts and the public to weigh in. 

In these pages, you’ll find personal reflections on the meaning of whenua, beautiful works of art inspired by the earth, as well as our usual accumulation of funny, sad, and thought-provoking articles. Read about how walking barefoot helps you feel a location. Or how amateur (and pro) sport will be affected by climate change. And while you’re reading, think about what whenua means to you. Immerse yourself in the earth’s soil, water, and air. Thank her for all she gives to you.

And register to vote, for the love of all things holy.