Kauri gum, a fossilized resin detracted from kauri trees, is used for chewing or tattooing, and often is made into jewellery. The gum comes from kauri trees found in Agathis australis forests. The trees once covered much of the New Zealand North Island, before Māori and European settlers caused deforestation, causing several areas to revert to sand dunes, scrubs, and swamps. The ancient kauri fields continued to provide a source for the gum and the remaining forests.

Kauri gum formed when resin from a kauri trees leaked out through fractures or cracks in the bark, hardening with the exposure to air. Lumps commonly fell to the ground and became covered with soil and forest litter, eventually fossilising. Other lumps formed as branches forked or trees were damaged, which released the resin.

The Māori had many uses for the gum, which they called kapia. Fresh gum was used as a type of chewing gum (older gum was softened by soaking and mixing with juice of the puwha thistle). Highly flammable, the gum was also used as a fire-starter, or bound in flax to act as a torch. Burnt and mixed with animal fat, it made a dark pigment for moko tattooing. Kauri gum was also crafted into jewellery, keepsakes, and small decorative items. Like other forms of amber, kauri gum sometimes includes insects and plant material.

Gum or GUM may refer to:

Wayne Anthony Ross (born February 25, 1943) is an American attorney residing in Alaska. In 2009, Ross was nominated to be Alaska Attorney General by then Governor Sarah Palin. His nomination was rejected by the Alaska Legislature on April 16, 2009. Ross is a current director of the National Rifle Association, and previously served as its vice president.

Ross has been active in Alaska politics for decades, running in the Republican gubernatorial primaries twice and serving on Palin's gubernatorial campaign. He has been active in lobbying for gun rights and against gun control, and in the pro-life movement. In 2003, Ross defended a man who had poured buckets of water onto Iraq war protesters, arguing that the man was exercising his right to free speech by dousing the protesters with water.

Ross' nomination to be Alaska Attorney General was controversial. In 1993, he wrote a letter to the state bar association, arguing against a law which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. In the letter, Ross wrote: "This bill seems to give extra rights to a group whose lifestyle was a crime only a few years ago, and whose beliefs are certainly immoral in the eyes of anyone with some semblance of intelligence and moral character." He went on to describe gay Alaskans as "degenerates" who engage in "sexual perversion". Questioned about these statements during his confirmation hearings, Ross compared his distaste for homosexuals to his distaste for lima beans, and stated that he would uphold state laws regardless of his personal opinions on homosexuality or lima beans. Ultimately, Ross' nomination was rejected by the Alaska Legislature on April 16, 2009, by a vote of 35 – 23, the first time an Alaska Governor's cabinet appointee failed confirmation.