Ffion Bright -
Tangaroa the Polynesian sea God proclaimed to past generations of Māori, the very words that climate activists echo today: “Tiaki mai i ahau, māku āno koe e tiaki” (If you look after me, I will be sure to protect you).
Cast away during the colonial era, Māori indigenous views on the preservation of the environment are now being actively promoted through the integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge to general climate change mitigation.
The Māori approach to nature focuses on the entire community’s commitment to sustainable resource extraction. Notably in the place of overly commercialised fishing quotas, Māori communities, as customary guardians and managers of the environment, install rāhui (the temporary banning of extraction of particular resources from a designated area or even from entering a space in order to promote its regeneration). Such stewardship initiatives are progressively becoming integrated into New Zealand’s general climate policy- notably New Zealand’s ‘Antarctica New Zealand’s Statement of Intent’ (2019-2023) that promised to build collaboration between Antarctic research projects and the existing knowledge of Māori community representatives. This however is just a starting point. More awareness and momentum are required to integrate indigenous perspectives into the fight against climate change both in New Zealand and beyond!
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