Rakiura is a place of wild and desolate beauty. It is rugged, unforgiving and brutally alive. From lush rimu forests to miles of wide sands open to Antarctic currents and winds, it is a place in which the role of man as custodian of the wilderness is a delicate balance of repentance, repair and withdrawal. The finale - renewal - must come from the life of the land itself.

Rakiura: Seeds in the Sand tells a story which, unlike so much of the island's flora and fauna, is certainly not unique. After all, variations on this theme - the interference of mankind with an ecosystem - are echoed in countless other histories throughout New Zealand and the world. But this story is not about the damage done by mankind to a pristine wilderness. It's not a rant against the hard-working farmers and woodsmen who were doing their best to feed their families. It's not documentation of an endangered species from man's neglect or greed or apathy. No, it's bigger and wilder and much more important than that. This is not a story about mankind: it's a story about everything else. From the smallest grains of sand to the vast dunes and beaches they comprise, from the red-yellow berries carrying tiny seeds of giant rimu trees, the living wilderness of Rakiura holds a message that is applicable far beyond its shores: that life, in all its wild, incomprehensible, muddy-booted glory, goes on.