From Bruce Stewart’s view, conservation of the environment is all about his Maori spirituality…whaunautanga.  He sees the universe as the big whanau…they are many and yet they are all one. They are separate and yet they need each other. It started from Te Kore (the nothing) and has developed to where it is now. To Bruce no-one is The Boss…it goes by itself.

Wairua is central to his belief.  He says it is in the word - wairua, the two waters.  When the two (opposite or different) are in balance, there is harmony. So when someone says there is a lovely Wairua in your house, they are saying it feels good. He says, “Send the children in; they’ll soon sniff it out.”

In the Maori story of creation, the separation of Rangi and Papa is about the intervention of Tane the Kaitiaki, to turn chaos back into harmony.  "Western thinking, with their belief that God has given them dominion over all living things has upset the fragile balance" says Bruce. "By and large, humans are the great predators, it would all go better without them.  If humans went into extinction our environment would recover quickly".

He believes humans also have the capacity to wake up The Tane inside and become The Kaitiaki (caretaker, protector and balancer).  Bruce believes we all have a strong pull towards conservation because the memory is still there, it is who we are.  So right from the start, while he was still in prison, he decided he would somehow buy back The Whenua to set it free. Being private owners was putting The Whenua at risk as it can easily be lost, so he set up the Tapu Te Ranga Trust.