Adam Currie – From Scouts to Climate Action

Adam Currie is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading young voices in the climate movement. We explore his love of wild, remote trips — from hauling surfboards through native bush to packrafting the Gillespie Pass circuit — and how time outdoors has shaped his activism.
 
Adam shares his thoughts on mentorship in the mountains, why accessibility matters more than fancy gear, and how tramping can help bridge our political divides. He also opens up about optimism, activism, and why he still believes we can emerge from the climate emergency together.
 
From butter puddings to bush politics, this is a conversation about nature, community, and hope.

https://www.instagram.com/adam_currie_nz/

https://350.org.nz/

Transcript

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Adam 0:00

we did the Hollyford Pike, trip relatively recently. And we lu surfboards down at, so you're you're kayaking on a boat carrying a surfboard through a New Zealand native bush. And it's such a New Zealand experience.

Speaker 0:17

Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Jonty 0:37

My guest today is Adam Curry from three 50 out Aurora. He's a leading voice in New Zealand's climate movement and Akeem Tremper. I'm delighted to welcome him to the podcast, ki Adam. Sure, Johnny, good to be with you. Thank you. Now, where do things start for you? What were your first memories of being in the outdoors?

Adam 0:54

That period between primary school and high school, which I know is very stressful for a lot of people, was very stressful for me. I was worried about going to high school with, not having good friends and so on. And during that summer between primary school and high school we were gonna go on the Hefe track, which is like one of our first tramps I ever did. And I was really not looking forward to it to be honest. I was like, oh, I don't wanna do this, blah, blah, blah. I never really had a good experience with tramping before. And then did it and loved it and I've really loved it ever since. And over high school I got quite involved in scouts. I did a lot of sailing I was a scout leader for a long time. So I really got into it through scouts and just going on fun, silly trips with friends, people you love in the outdoors. And that's how I got into it.

Jonty 1:36

Were there any trips that were particular, learning experiences?

Adam 1:39

One trip that was a good learning experience was, early on, Scouts had these old sort of sailing boats and so we decided it'd be really fun to sail up the able Tasman. And so we had some people walk the able tasman, some people sail up the able Tasman. And that was quite an experience. Just, an old boat, swimming to the shore, swimming out again, camping in enabled Tasman Lakes as a high school kid trying to organize all the logistics. That was a really good lesson and logistics I still remember. And all the scouts I was looking after were like, playing some game the night before, throwing those instant butter scotch sachet sort of up into the trees. And I remember lying down and we sat on the beach waking up in the morning and I saw this sort of German couple like steering their porridge and obviously one of the butterscotch puddings has still been stuck in the tree and a little bit of wind blew. And then this butterscotch pudding fell out of the tree and straight into the German woman's porridge. And she's oh. I like this country with these, butter scripts, pudding, falling from the sky. Anyway, I think that was one of my formative experiences. But then I guess going into university, doing more mountain trips, part of the Otago Tramping Club, and that's what really got my love into the mountains properly.

Jonty 2:44

So I would say you're probably not a purest Trumper, like you've already mentioned about using sailing boats. And then I can see from your packing you, you're doing skis and a pack craft.

Adam 2:53

yeah. I'm definitely not a purest Trumper. I love going to really, really remote places. Often I'm like if I can tramp to get to a really cool place, I'd rather do that bit, so I'll do the tramp as an approach to a big climbing wall, then I'll go climbing in field land, right? Or you'll do a tramp as an to go mountaineering and to go climbing in the outdoors, or do a trip to go swimming or kayaking, lug your boat up and kayak down from really spot. So to me it's yeah, I could just go for the sake of tramping, but if I can go to go somewhere and do the other thing as well. The other thing's about the highlight, the whole thing's a highlight, the journey's as important as destination. I like to tramp to go places and to do other things, which is usually the objective to me because then I do a lot of walking through the bush anyway, to get to the mountains, but you get tramping and you get the other activity as well.

Jonty 3:37

And what have been some of the most, physically and logistically challenging trips you've done.

Adam 3:41

We attempted a big mountaineering trip over the Garden of Eden and Garden uh, ice Meadows. That was a really cool trip. Just, a lot of various skier and skis and different people walking to meet different people at different times. We didn't actually get over the. Plateau in the end because of weather. But we just had a really cool trip going through the mountains and we ended up the Aya and if anyone knows the Aya, it's a pretty interesting access. You have to drive a long way up, a very remote farm road. There's zero hitchhike ability. So we had to drive down there and we had to walk out for like miserable day, down the Aya. And then we just saw my friend driving, my car up towards us on the farm and ending what we thought might be another two days walk. So that was a pretty good feeling. And then I think, just taking lots of students, into the outdoors for the Otago Remming Club, I really enjoyed just teaching people and bringing people the outdoors because the mountaineering side of things is even more inaccessible to people, both for gear, financial reasons, but also just confidence reasons. I think mentorship's the most important thing in tramping and in everything. having that really good mentorship, I think in the outdoors is so important that you can ask people, you can ask silly questions, and so I've really enjoyed doing that through the Otago Champion Club and, taking people to their doors and bringing people into nature that otherwise wouldn't

Jonty 4:56

How is the Tramping Club going

Adam 4:58

I think that, young people today want to go tramp and they want to get out into the outdoors. You talk to the average person, we know we spend too much time on our phones. That's the thing about it. It's not like these problems that we all don't agree on, it's almost every young person wants to spend less time on their phone. They use time trackers and Instagram, and so on. And when people have the opportunity to go into the outdoors, they thrive at, almost all the University Chaplain Club. Trips are always overfilled. There's always massive wait lists. And it's because people value nature. People love going into nature. People love spending time with their friends. And so I think it's an incredibly popular activity and it's all about making it more accessible to people and saying that you don't need the fancy ski. You can walk in your old, op shop pants or whatever you really don't need. fancy gear despite what Matt pack's trying to tell you to get to outdoors, obviously. Absolutely. Safety is really important. But what's also really important is, there's also a safety issue. If you sit at home and you watch TV and you don't get into the outdoors and you don't get fit and you have health issues from that, right? Absolutely we need to be giving people the resources and the knowledge they need to get into the outdoors.

Jonty 5:59

Have you had any near disasters while starting your trips?

Adam 6:03

I had one pack rafting. So pack rafting for people who don't know it is when you have an inflatable kayak basically. So they range from the warehouse. You can get those pump up inflatable rafts, which is the student method, which is quite cheap. But obviously don't do quite so well the rivers to very fancy, proper pack rafts, which I guess are much more designed to be done in white water and much lighter and so on. But yeah, we've had a few trips with various old boats. And one of them my ex-partner and I were kayaking down. We did the G Lispy pass circuit, which is a really lovely pack rafting circuit actually, because you can walk over Glissy pass and you can pack graft all the way out to Wilkin. And we got a big tree pop the pack raft and the pack raft. You know, And then, you have about a, what was about, gotta be a three hour kayak, became a five hour walk through the thick, thick bush.

Jonty 6:51

In terms of pack rafting, is it reasonably well established now in terms of some of the roots? Or is it, you look at the top map and go there's a river there, so I presumably I can get down.

Adam 7:00

Yeah, there's actually a fantastic resource called pack rafting trips nz, and that's run by. By one Grow mainly, but it's supported by the Pack Rafting Association in New Zealand. And that's just an incredible resource. We're the only country in the world that has it like it. The Homer pack rafting is really Alaska. even Alaska doesn't have a resource like it, it's basically the topo, the beloved New Zealand topo map, which we are so lucky to have with literally like people, put the, A line down the river. This is a grade one, an easy river. This is a grade four, a very hard river, and so on. And all the notes of how to do the trip. It's very accessible and easy in that sense, of course, except for the part of finding the pack raft. And while you can use warehouse rafts, there's only so much you can do with warehouse rafts and it's very expensive otherwise, but but yeah, I find there's a really good thing. And if, and although a lot of people use that, use the resource and don't contribute anything for it, so people can contribute $3 or something if they use. It's always much appreciated. But the Pat Rafting Association in New Zealand is a really big part of. The culture now and is a really, active club where they have big annual meet every year where everyone comes together and does big pack rough strips around Mechon. But also, you just also get an old plastic kayak and lug it, like you're not gonna get quite so far as obviously you're not quite so light, but it's still great fun, with the boat on your back. And the same way we did the Hollyford Pike, trip relatively recently. And we lu surfboards down at, so you're you're kayaking on a boat carrying a surfboard through a New Zealand native bush. And it's such a New Zealand experience. A lot of people go to Europe and get a Cham knee or whatever to go climbing and maybe you're climbing hard all day and back having a fancy restaurant for dinner. But the wilderness experience has that sense of adventurous New Zealand is so lucky to have, we have, a third of our country's national park. we are really lucky to be able to have that experience where we can really go into the wilderness and be the only person for many kilometers.

Jonty 8:42

And thinking about our HU network, have you got any particular favorites?

Adam 8:46

Oh yeah. A lot of favorites. I love the mountain hut. So French Fridge Hut is a really lovely hu I also love anyone in Dunedin. I would really recommend a staircase hut. It's one of the cutest little, it's literally 20 minutes from Dunedin maybe. And it's pretty close, and it's just you walk up a beautiful river and it's this quaint hot with a fire and a bed right in front of the fireplace. I also love the Silver Peak circuit. It's something really special, which is really close to Dunedin. Again, like 20 minute drive. You can even run it from Dunedin. But it's just a hut that's so accessible to people. It's amazing. We're getting people tramping. It's a relatively safe circuit. There's three huts along the way. That's a really beloved place that I think so special for industry in bringing people into the outdoors.

Jonty 9:29

And then moving on to your, work you've been doing with three 50 Outta Aurora. Could explain what that involves

Adam 9:35

I came into I guess activism and climate politics and stuff when I was in high school, while I was still, in scouts and so on. But we had a big flood in Nelson, and our house wasn't as bad as others, but, we were sandbagging and everything. and my neighbor, his whole living room was destroyed and we had to carry him out with this complete loss of dignity. And then we went to, after the floods, which were of course climate fueled, and I think the scientists can work out now. It's 40% fueled by climate or 70% or whatever. we went to talk to the local MP at the time who was actually minister for the environment, Nick Smith, And I felt more hopeless talking to him than I did when we were literally sandbagging our house. and so I think that's what I really thought. a lot of people don't have the privilege and the opportunity to be really vocal for the climate. And,, my friends from Guam and from the Pacific and so on. Of course many communities in Northern and so on New Zealand, I think, so impacted by climate and it's really important thing to do. so from then I got involved in Generation Zero, which was, youth advocacy group where we wrote the Zero Carbon Act and then campaigned to get it into law successfully. Although there's a lot of debate now over whether that was actually a mistake at the time. Russell Norman, the current CEO of Green Bees and former Coley that argues that actually Zero Carbon Act was a net negative. Because there was so much critical tension in 2019. There was the school strikes, there was a new labor government and the Jacinda, and the Zero Carbon Act, they could say, this is the big climate thing we are doing. Where of course it's a framework. The zero carbon ACT's not action of itself. It's a framework and a commission established action, but it's never action itself. And so a lot of people have argued it was a net negative, but for good or for bad, we did that. We ran our campaign. And I then worked for Dock First, went for the department conservation and then worked for Greenpeace. And now I work for three 50 alt, which is a real sort of grassroots and I mainly run trainings. The basic point is we have a couple of paid staff to enable a lot of people's campaign, right? I've got 40 hours a week or whatever, and maybe another 20 hours of my volunteer time. When you're mobilizing volunteers and training people to do the campaign, they do not only do that. Skills you don't have, you can have 600, 700 volunteer hours of work instead of 40. So it's a far more effective model of campaigning, in my view. It's all part of an ecosystem. We all compliment each other. that's why I love doing the work I do.

Jonty 11:50

And what are you seeing in terms of the level of interest of volunteers? Is it increasing in numbers? Is it primarily younger? Is it older? What's the kind of demographics and trends?

Adam 12:00

so it's a really interesting demographic I think. I like our email list, which is, I guess one of our primary forms of communication is definitely older, leaning older, but, a lot of volunteers are younger, and I think that now there used to be maybe five, 10 years ago, there were the climate people, which are the sciencey people that campaigned on, on climate change and so on. And since the floods and the storms and there's the climate crisis escalates, it's been opened up and the climate people, or we call them the climate people have. To everyone, everyone's impacted by this and everyone is impacted by this issue and people are linking it to the cost of living, which of course it's so closely correlated with. and so I think we're seeing a massive amount of volunteers. I think people are very concerned about climate change. Young people and older people, often older people. Feel they wanna do their bit to not leave their world in the worst place for their children and young people realize the importance of climate. So it's really collaboratively, I think, with old people being a bit of a tour kind China relationship where older people do some mentoring but I also think there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of doom, like it's too late, it's too bad and we can't do anything about it. But it's the nature of climate change, right? it could always be slightly worse and slightly better, You could always have one degree of warming, one degree less of warming. It's never we've had climate change or we stop climate change. every fraction of a degree of warming averted, save lives, and I also love it because I think the volunteers, like you run a campaign. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Either way you win by moving the dial, but also you win by people feeling that they're involved in politics, they're involved in campaigning, people have come together, They feel like they have a voice, they have community. They build their friends. People meeting their partners there, their best friends there. and taking action in community instead of sitting at home feeling sad and watching Instagram videos about the state of the world.

Jonty 13:43

So what kind of campaigns do they run?

Adam 13:45

At three 50 we run our campaigns based on what the other climate organizations are doing. And also just we are volunteers and what we think is the most strategic. And so we have a long history of, divestment, campaigning. So campaigning for banks to divest from fossil fuel companies because if the fossil fuel companies can't get the finance, to do what the things they wanna do. And that's what people also miss. There is, it's also a gradient, right? Yeah. Maybe if Westpac drops a particular fossil fuel company, yeah, they'll probably be able to find finance elsewhere. But they're forced towards the loan shark end of the spectrum. And then having higher interest rates and everything that goes along with that, and it just becomes harder and harder. And so I think a lot of it with fossil fuel companies is. it's death by a thousand cuts. It's getting those lobbyists, kicking polluters out of negotiations and out of government. It's costing them extra money through divestment. It's through all different things. So we have a big banks campaign, which has been very successful. Getting banks to divest from the worst fossil fuel companies. and Kiwibank now fully fossil free. some other banks to Westpac and BNZ are both dropping coal companies. at the moment we've got a big campaign to. protect the dentist and plateau from coal mining. And that's in particular because last year we had a campaign against the fast track law, which is a law that, would enable amongst other things really destructive projects against, democratic and environmental input. And this law has effectively enabled a really large coal mine, which is far bigger than any other mine in New Zealand's history. And that's on The 10 Plateau, which is a very unique special place with Native Forest and so on. And it would be replaced by a giant coal mine, the size of Nelson City. And we actually, I, we had a debate recently against the coal lobbyist, and we are like, oh, it's blight in the landscape the size of Nelson City. And he said Nelson's in the landscape too, isn't it? So he's very witty, but yeah, I think it's really important to have these really big iconic campaigns that we can all rally around. And of course it's important because, this particular mine is so big, the emissions from this mine alone are equivalent to New Zealand's entire and your climate emissions. So it's, the size is just astronomical. But also it's, just a really important rallying point. And, we've already been very successful. We've forced 'em to delay their application with massive scrutiny. We've put, we've got some sessions to the Fast Track Act. Because I think that these fossil fuel companies, they, they also don't, what I think a lot of New Zealanders don't realize is number one, the size of it. We always think of this old coal miner with his ax, working hard And I totally support the awesome people that did coal mining with, axes back in the day. But that's not what a slide now, you know, as I said, it's the size in Daon City, these ginormous. Devastating impacts, and I think New Zealanders don't support cutting down native forests to make way for coal mines. And also it doesn't provide us with royalties. So we know that, it costs the government more to fix up a single mine, than it does for all royalties for the entire year. And of course, they're all offshore own. And so it's not providing our economy With benefit and it's definitely not providing us with good, stable jobs that we can rely on for decades to come. And we also, of course, do local election campaigns, which we ran a big one, which just obviously finished over the weekend. trying to get, climate justice and wards Into local politics. we run vision campaigns of what we do want, just transition campaigns to promise good clean jobs to everyone that wants them. All sorts of things. A lot. There's a lot of volunteers and a lot of work going on. A great example of a really cool connection between tramping and campaigning is on the Denis and Plateau, whereas over Easter we had, about 70 or 80 of us tramp up to the Denis and Plateau, in place, as a threat from coal mining and occupy the area. Tramped up there and we took the civil resistance of, stopping anything happening up there. it was in this area where a similar mind had happened about. Years earlier, the Happy Valley Safe Happy Valley campaign where, there's a long history of tramping and defending places through tramping and being with outdoors. But I also think it's important to remember that with climate change, it's often seen as this environmental issue and sure, climate change affects the environment, but it affects people's lives just as much and it affects the city just as much. so it is an environmental issue, but it's also not an environmental issue. What I think one of the interesting things of this whole debate is we talk about like. NA nature almost a decade ago now, produced an article proving that, X tons of emissions equals one lives lost. And this particular coal mine, according to nature, the most academic general in the world, one of the most prestigious generals in the world calculations, are that this particular coal mine proposal, Dennis and Pau would cause I think it's over 30,000 deaths. The single coal mine would cause 30,000 deaths. But if I tried to say something like, if MP tried to say that in Parliament, if I tried to say that in the media, you'd be torn to shreds. Like it's just not a serious concept, but it's true, like it's hundred percent true. But it's just funny that our political realities and the way we talk about things are so constrained that if I talk about someone that is from a health and safety issue, directly dies on a site. Then absolutely. You can talk about it rightly so. Um, air pollution like isn't that middle ground, right? Like we know that one in 10 deaths in New Zealand is from air pollution, from things like coal mines and fossil fuels and cars and that you can't really talk about that, but you most definitely can't talk about how the climate impact of coal mines in New Zealand is killing tens of thousands of people. That's not, it doesn't accounted for, which is a shame because. It should be, but it's just the, it's a sad reality that we need to continue changing through storytelling,

Jonty 18:59

What's your levels of optimism?

Adam 19:01

I'm always relentlessly optimistic. I always think we're in an emergency, right? But the word emergency itself means it's not over. If it was over, be part of the emergency, it'd be too late, but it's not. We in the emergency and we can emerge from the emergency, I'm relentlessly optimistic and I think people know that, a clean energy is ours for the taking. anyone that says otherwise is paid for by the fossil fuel industry and the politicians that they pay for that are trying to convince us. Otherwise, I think New Zealanders know and people. Clean air is popular, healthy water is popular. and stable jobs that we can rely on for decades to come are popular. so I really do think that just by appealing to people's intrinsic values, by bringing the conversation back to humanity, to who we are and being in right relationship with each other and with the place, we bring us together. I optimistic that, We can come together, we can discover some humanity in the and we can live much better lives. I love that graph, which is so old now, it's climate action and it's got all the benefits of green jobs, clean air, healthier water. And then one guy goes, what if it's all off sham? And we create a better world just for nothing?

Jonty 20:04

So back into the tramping world, what's on your bucket list of trips to do?

Adam 20:10

I'd really love to go back into the Garden of Eden as I referenced earlier which is a really beautiful ice plateau, which sort of goes all the way from the west coast, one of the only east west, long glaciers and that's a really special trip that I'd really love to do, and I'm hoping through this December. A lot of bush bashing through really thick West coast bush, which I love. It's one of the things you hate at the time and you get out of it, you're like, oh, that was fun. There's all these videos of me going, I hate nature, and my friends take. So I'd really like to go there. I'd love to go up to the Olives Ice Plato another, which is a bit of a classic, uh, atago trap climb activity, which I've never been all the way up to the. Wild. So these really remote special places. Also, as I go on, being a bit more of a mentor and bringing more people into outdoor spaces and, I've done that. Walk up them Tookie Tookie for those who know Aspire National Park very well. I've done that walk up in Tookie Tookie endless times more to take people at such a fantastic training ground. Another place a lot of people don't go that I would really recommend is Canyon Creek. The Hariri. The Hariri is a really beautiful river that no one really goes to. You can there's a really lovely hut that you can actually drive to and you can crash out, after driving them Friday night after work. And then you can walk up to this beautiful place called Canyon Creek where there's amazing ice climbing and everything else. It's also just a beautiful place to hang out. And it's a really great training ground for young people. So I'm really excited to. People into, into outdoors Love. And also doing it together in community. Like I definitely, I definitely had this almost obsession with nature for a long time. And what I mean by that is like I would just be outside tramping as much as I possibly could. And now it's if I have an option for going for a week long tramp by myself, or a three or four day tramp with friends I love, I usually go with three or four with friends I love I think the important thing for me about tramping is it's those, the people you're going with as well and there's absolutely something to be said for solitude. And I think we don't have enough solitude in our lives, and I think that's something really important. But I've had that part of my life, but at this part of my life, I just think that just like spending time with the people we love and developing relationships with new people. so many of my closest friends I've met in random Tramping hus, you know, and you'd been Snowden or rained and you'd be forced to hang out for a day or two. In some remote mountain or just west coast hut. building relationships with that and just, yeah. building better relationships with each other. I think we are coming into this age where people are realizing how important our relationships with each other are and, just building community and living together. I think a really important part of that. it combines nature and it combines people. I think those two relationships together are what really makes so important to me.

Speaker 22:50

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.