A 30-tonne punch to Kerikeri’s heart — because we choose fossil-fuel comfort over climate action
Updated: 1 day ago
At the entrance to Kerikeri, a town aspiring to become New Zealand’s first bilingual community, stands a 15-metre steel sentinel. It does not merely mark a place: it signals a crisis.
Te Haa o te Ao – The Breath of the World is the work of renowned sculptor Chris Booth. Its origins lie in a conversation with two leaders of the local hapū Ngāti Rēhia, Nora Rameka and Kipa Munro. They spoke with Chris about nearby Mount Pōkākā, a place from which Ngāti Rēhia could signal to the people of the Taiamai Plains when something important had happened: disasters, battles, or events demanding attention.
It was the word battles that sparked something in Chris. The greatest battle of our time, he realised, is not fought with weapons. It is the battle against climate change.
A living barometer
The sculpture is deceptively simple in concept and devastatingly powerful in execution.
A hollow steel pole rises into the Northland sky. Steel cables run through it, each carrying massive local boulders of around 250 kilograms. Holes have been drilled through the stones so that they hang like immense poi: a stone on a rope, recalling the traditional Māori weapon.
When the atmosphere is not heating further, the boulders hang loose and relaxed at the bottom. As global temperatures rise, however, a sleeve mechanism around the pole winches them upward, pulling the cables taut. The hotter the planet, the greater the visible strain.
Having reached 1.5 degrees of global heating, the boulders are now held at their most stressed position. Te Haa o te Ao is, in effect, screaming.
The plan that has not worked out — yet
At the heart of the work was a beautiful plan.
Local schoolchildren, learning about climate change and its consequences, would activate the sleeve mechanism as the climate improved. Tamariki would become agents of hope, physically and visibly lowering the tension in the sculpture.
That moment has not arrived. The boulders remain in their most stressed position.
The irony is stark: while this artwork makes climate disruption impossible to ignore, national science curricula are being planned with fewer explicit references to climate change. As though naming the battle less often might somehow make it disappear.
At the top of the pole sit three magnificent birds, carved by artist Tom Hei Hei:
A tūī, looking landward over forests, farms and communities.
A kāhu, or hawk, holding the wider overview.
A shag, looking seaward towards rising oceans and warming currents.
So far, none has seen the improvement for which the sculpture waits.
From signal station to steel and stone
The lineage of Te Haa o te Ao is profoundly moving.
Mount Pōkākā was a place associated with warning and attention. The word pōkākā can refer to stormy or hot conditions, a storm or squall, and also to a native forest tree. These meanings deepen the resonance of a work concerned with climatic instability, land and living systems.
Now Te Haa o te Ao stands at the entrance to Kerikeri, issuing its own daily warning in a language that transcends words.
The connection between mātauranga Māori and contemporary environmental art is no accident. It emerged through partnership: Ngāti Rēhia cultural knowledge meeting an artist’s vision. The work stands on returned whenua in a district where Māori leadership is strong, including under Mayor Moko Tepania and a council with substantial Māori representation.
The Far North also has practical experience of resilience, including renewable generation through Ngāwhā geothermal power and solar energy.
The reference to Taiamai also carries a generous and hopeful meaning. The wider Bay of Islands area, including the plain around Waimate North, is traditionally known as Taiamai — shortened from the Ngāpuhi
whakataukī:Ka kata ngā pūriri o Taiamai
“The pūriri trees of Taiamai are laughing with joy.”
It is a phrase expressing delight in the world, or welcoming an honoured guest.
A film, a conversation, a challenge
During Te Wiki o te Reo Māori in September 2026, four short films were screened at the Toiwaka Turner Centre. One, produced by Simon Ogston, documented the construction of Te Haa o te Ao.
Yet it was the kōrero following the screening that gave the film much of its emotional force. Hana-May Riedlinger-Kapa, Kaiārahi Toi Māori, facilitated the discussion with skill, while Chris Booth offered illuminating insight into what inspired the work — and what it asks of us.
Its challenge is uncomfortable.
The sculpture does not let us look away or offer false comfort. Its 30 tonnes of stone, held under full tension, are not abstract data points on a graph. They are a physical expression of the weight of collective inaction, suspended in the air for everyone entering Kerikeri to see.
The breath of the world is laboured
Te Haa o te Ao translates as “the breath of the world.” Right now, that breath is shallow and strained. The sculpture says so plainly: in stone, steel and sky.
Its question for every person who passes beneath the taut boulders and watchful birds: when will the children get to lower the stones?
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