Real Life: Sam ‘The Trap Man’ Gibson on how going bush let him escape occasion life-style

“Those guys partied really hard, and so that was the social scene I got put in – I was a surfer. I’m really lucky to have had people that saw what trajectory I was going down and gave me some opportunities and gave me the storyline to get me out of that.”

With the blessing of his principal and fogeys, these alternatives consisted of standard week-long journeys into the bush as an alternative of faculty – an surroundings Gibson struggled in – to stay with “some amazing trampers”.

“They’d send me bush in the middle of every term up to Te Urewera… Those [trampers] taught me about my place in the world in relation to trees and plants and how I could contribute to these ecosystems that looked after me, and I just haven’t looked back,” he recalled.

“It’s somewhere where I could work hard, but it’s also somewhere I could contribute to and somewhere that looked after me. I just found my place…

“I feel like when we put young people out into the bush, after a whole day, they start to light up and they start to thrive.”

Gibson instructed Real Life the bush has at all times felt like dwelling to him, even from a really younger age, with a powerful connection to the whenua nurtured whereas he was rising up in Gisborne.

“I’ve got incredible grandparents who all took me in the bush, and great parents and uncles and aunties,” he mentioned.

“My parents were kind of alternative characters when I was young. Dad was a tramper and both of them climbed to Everest Base Camp, so they were quite adventurous people.

“Dad would take me into the bush and tramping and whitewater rafting, and Mum would make all our food from scratch. She’d bake all our own bread and biscuits and had a big māra kai (food garden), so quite wholesome people.

“We lived in this not really cash-rich environment, but this really loved and nurtured environment that was connected to the land.”

Having channelled his love of nature into his work life, Gibson’s profession has taken two latest surprising turns – into politics, together with his council election marketing campaign; and present enterprise, together with his latest doco.

“I never really intended to get into politics at all, but when you get shoulder-tapped by the aunties, I guess you do what you’re told, hey!” he instructed Cowan.

Gibson says suggestions suggests viewers are loving Think Like a Forest.

“We’re seeing a big reaction with climate change; we’re seeing the 90-year data showing that we’re going to experience more intense rainfall events and more fire – and we just really wanted to make a case for putting trees in the right places in our landscape,” he mentioned.

“And that’s what the documentary is all about. It’s who these trees are and what mechanisms we need to really build in some resilience for the future.”

The documentary is a part of a proposal they took to Parliament referred to as Recloaking Papatūānuku, offering proof that over 100 years it really works out cheaper to revive native forests than it’s to purchase offshore carbon credit.

“Currently, we’re investing our hard-earned New Zealand dollars in international markets to supply carbon credits for us here, but if we invested that money at home over a 100-year period, it would work out much cheaper.

“But it will require our politicians to start thinking longer than a single term.”

However, Gibson instructed Cowan that views among the many common public are shifting.

“Our farmers and even our forestry companies are starting to transition pine forests into native forests because they see the big picture. So I think we’re already doing it. I just think the Government has a little bit of catching up to do.”