A personal view
We all have biographies that can help explain who we are, what we do, and why we do the things that we do in our lives. Often we learn from others by hearing their stories.
Things that matter in Gavin's life:Family
It won't take too much effort to figure out that family is top of my list. Balancing career and family in our modern world is no easy task. I'm not perfect but I think I've done a pretty good job. Embarking on a journey in 2007 to both take my family around the world and interact with farmers along the way regarding climate change, and to document the whole thing, is a pretty awesome undertaking. A culmination of 18 years parenting and 16 years working professionally on climate change.
Food
I am passionate about food and cooking. I was a pretty fussy eater when I was young and had a terrible sweet tooth, but my Mum had a huge influence on me. She was always in the kitchen making things and was always sharing the products of her labours with neighbours and friends. For various reasons I became a vegetarian in my early 20s. We've raised our daughters as vegetarians, we eat local organic food as much as we can and our meals are mostly tailored to what is seasonally available. I agree with Colin Tudge's view that we need to be focused on supporting local cuisine around the world. I don't believe we should all be vegetarian, that is a question of personal choice. I do strongly believe that the world would benefit hugely from a greater focus on eating food that is ethically and sustainably produced, with an emphasis on local produce as much as possible, eating less meat, and a lot less processed food.
Land
My parents were raised on dairy farms and were farmers themselves until just after I was born. I don't recall a very strong sense of connection with the land as a child. Growing up by the beach I had a ready made playground and being by the ocean was my place of solitude and sanctuary when I needed it. A latent connection to the land was there however and emerged very strongly in my late teens and early 20s. A year spent working as a forest worker after I left school taught me a lot about people and also about monocultural production systems. However it was the failure of my early University education to really spark me that I began to question and read more widely. Tramping trips into the New Zealand native forest gave me a deep connection with our native vegetation. Working and travelling in Australia and then backpacking through Asia opened my eyes hugely. When I returned to New Zealand for further study I often found myself tempted to give it all away and go and live a simple life. After finally completing my PhD and after a couple of years in the UK we managed to find ourselves a 1 hectare piece of land on the side of a mountain. We lived for 7 years on the side of Mt Pirongia in the Waikato region of New Zealand, raising our young daughters, exploring the forest, planting trees, milking our house cow. We lived the ecological ideal and I experienced the feeling of really putting my roots into the earth. For various reasons we sold our land and moved. I experienced the pain of separation very deeply and it took me a few years to really start feeling connected to our new urban home. Connection with the land and having a sense of place are hugely important in our lives.
Spiritual life
When I first travelled through Asia, in my early 20s, local people would often ask me what my religion was. It was perfectly natural for them to call themselves a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Muslum even if they didn't actively practice their religion. And yet I was never comfortable in calling myself a Christian. My path has been to learn to be my own master, to be open and respectful of all religions, but most of all to seek to live my life in a way that is respectful of others and other forms of life. Losing my father at 17 had a huge influence in stimulating a search for deeper spiritual understanding. I've subsequently experienced the wonder of our 3 daughters being born at home, and more recently the death of my mother. For me, everything is connected. I'm naturally a holistic and global thinker. Developing inner discipline and patience have been real challenges for me. My daughters have been my greatest teachers in this regard. I've learnt that quality counts with just about everything I do. If I take time in doing the preparation or groundwork with whatever I do, with love, care and thoughtfulness, the results are always good and good things happen.
Being a scientist
A great disappointment for me was the general failure of my first degree in horticultural science to truly educate me about the land, food and the interconnections between the production of food and society and our environment. In a 4 year degree I learnt nothing about the history of agriculture until my final year and only by choice in a course that only a minority of final year students took. There was no questioning of our system of agriculture or balanced discussions of alternatives. There was no teaching of underlying ecological principles, except by choice again in the final year. In many ways I had to educate myself. It is from this experience that I have developed a strong belief that a lot of the problems we are faced with are the result of a failure of our education. The need to address unanswered questions was what motivated me to return to University. Even then I often struggled in an environment that expected specialisation when I craved to understand and explore the interconnections between things. Developing a career in climate change allowed my innate holistic thinking to emerge. Working independently for the last 5 years has enabled me to truly explore my natural interest in interconnections and creative interactions. I see boundaries not as places of separation but as places of high creative potential. For me the most productive and creative places are on the edges between things.