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Zak Horomia, chairman of Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae (Photo: Josie McClutchie; additional design: Tina Tiller)
Zak Horomia, chairman of Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae (Photo: Josie McClutchie; additional design: Tina Tiller)

Ngā Pae o te MāramatangaDecember 21, 2021

A threat to our identity: The impact of climate change on Māori

Zak Horomia, chairman of Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae (Photo: Josie McClutchie; additional design: Tina Tiller)
Zak Horomia, chairman of Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae (Photo: Josie McClutchie; additional design: Tina Tiller)

A new report from Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research reveals how Māori will be affected by climate change in future, and how they’re already feeling the impacts. 

This story was created in paid partnership with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae sits on the banks of the Uawa river, 10km north of Tolaga Bay as SH35 climbs north up the East Cape towards Tokomaru Bay. It’s a remote and wild part of Aotearoa. When Zak Horomia, chairman of the marae, was growing up on the East Coast, the awa and moana were pristine, even after the most severe storms. But as he grew older, things started to change.

“Back then, there were no issues with forestry slash, or with flooding, or rubbish. You could swim in the river safely, you could go fishing and eeling without getting snagged on anything. We used to have lush paddocks, everything was green. Then the droughts started.”

Horomia’s experiences, and those of tangata whenua around the country, are the subject of a new report: He huringa āhuarangi, he huringa ao: a changing climate, a changing world. The report from Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research synthesises and brings together the existing research on the climate change risks that face New Zealand through a whakaaro Māori lens, creating an important tool for whānau, iwi and hapū.  

“A few years ago that didn’t exist,” says co-author Dr Shaun Awatere (Ngāti Porou), resource economist for Landcare Research. “There was a national climate change risk assessment done for the entire country but the gap was a deeper dive into what it means for Māori, and this report provides that.” 

The report, produced by a multidisciplinary Māori research team working across 10 research institutions, considers the effects of climate change on everything from Māori business to the preservation of tikanga Māori in the face of global warming. It calls for the development of Māori cultural indicators and values for assessing the health of ecosystems on land and in the sea, and from the macro to the micro. 

Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae on the East Coast is the soul of the community (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

The effects of climate change can already be seen in the coastal marine area, the largest ecological domain in Aotearoa, the report finds. These ecosystems, comprising harbours, estuaries and the open ocean, are showing signs of damage including rising sea levels, water temperature and increasing ocean acidity. 

The changing habitat drives movements in the distribution of native species and creates prolific conditions for the establishment of invasive pests and diseases. Following a marine heatwave that stretched across 2017 and 2018, the complete loss of rimurapa (bull kelp) was recorded on reefs around Lyttelton. The native kelp was quickly replaced by an invasive pest species of kelp which caused a loss in the mussel population. 

On the Otago Peninsula, warming seas are leading to a decline in hoiho survival rates due to the reduction in size and quality of the fish stock on which they feed. Elsewhere, sightings of tropical and warm water fish, alien to New Zealand, have increased, while the reproduction of important commercial and customary species such as pāua and hoki has declined.

Acidification of the ocean is also harmful to organisms that rely on calcification, like molluscs, starfish and sea urchins. Kina in particular hold significant social and cultural value for whānau, hapū and iwi. 

In low-lying areas, climate change-induced sea level rise may permanently submerge estuaries, tidal marshes and wetlands, destroying sources of mahinga kai. Increased flooding will also contaminate waterways with trash and debris, as has been seen on the East Coast. 

Awatere says that failures to sustain cultural keystone species will have consequences for Māori values, both spiritually and culturally. The loss in species will also be mirrored by a loss in mātauranga Māori as the connections between whakataukī, reo and the natural world fray.

Depleted stocks are likely to have an effect on customary fishing rights – non-commercial quotas allocated to Māori for the gathering of kai – a context by which tangata whenua engage with the sea physically and metaphysically. And although customary harvests cannot be sold, they nevertheless have economic impacts for Māori communities as important sources of food that would otherwise require purchase to feed whānau and for large events like tangihanga. 

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People also maintains that indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines, the conservation of their animals and to see their lands flourish. Climate change puts Māori access to all those resources at risk. 

“The Crown has an obligation to protect Māori rights and interests with respect to natural resources including fish. There is an obligation to make sure that customary rights are acknowledged and upheld and supported,” says Awatere. This raises significant issues into the future around changing species and what redress quota holders might have. 

Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae sits on the banks of banks of the Uawa river, 10km north of Tolaga Bay on the North Island’s East Cape (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

Legal recognition of rāhui is one tool in the kete of policy instruments that can help manage fisheries, says Awatere. But equally important is the role of iwi and hapū Māori within the governance of fisheries and oceans.

“In that higher level you are able to provide the conditions for how we want to interact with our oceans and our environment. It’s at that stage where you can set out a vision which is beyond just a basic extraction of those resources.” 

The effects of depleted fish stocks are more than cultural, however; significant fisheries assets are concentrated in these keystone species. 

Climate change poses significant problems for the $68 billion Māori economy. Taken together, the manufacturing and natural resource-based sectors comprise around 68% of all Māori businesses. Māori collectively own a third of all fisheries by quota, and 20% by value. 

There is a strong and growing Māori interest in fisheries, including inter-iwi and commercial joint-venture partnerships. But almost half of all Māori fisheries assets by value are concentrated in species vulnerable to climate change-driven acidification, like koūra and pāua. Research regarding other high-value species like snapper and hoki needs more analysis, says Awatere, while research on other wild fish stocks including gurnard, ling and tarakihi is lacking entirely.

Māori investment into high-value species has created economic benefits, but also exposed the industry to significant climate change-related risks that are evident in marine tourism. Dr Mark Orams from Massey University has estimated that a single humpback whale generates over a million dollars in tourism revenue during its 50-year life. Operators like Whale Watch Kaikōura, a Māori-owned tourism business that serviced around 80,000 customers a year before Covid-19, depend on the reliable appearance of these giant mammals. Fluctuations in their migratory patterns suggest huge obstacles to tourism businesses in this space. 

Land-based businesses will struggle too, says Awatere. From 2006 to 2016, Māori capital investment in the forestry sector grew by 68%. These pine forests are particularly vulnerable to fire hazards that will accompany drier conditions, particularly in the north and east of the country. Severe weather patterns like floods can also create extremely dangerous run-off, where huge quantities of forestry slash is carried down mountainous terrain and into habited areas and waterways. 

Zak Horomia in 2018 standing on the slash washed down from the hills into Uawa (Tolaga Bay) (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

On the East Coast, slash events have caused huge damage in recent years. Zak Horomia recalls waterways filled with logs, stretching upwards of 14km back to Tolaga Bay. 

“You used to put hīnaki in the river without getting snagged. There is a lot of bloody debris on the river beds now. The forestry companies cut the trees in the hills and then in flooding it all comes down and makes a bloody mess,” he says. 

“It degrades the mauri of the area. All the oldies remember what it was like growing up here, and it is no longer the same as it was. How come we have all this rubbish in our rivers? And on the beach? They might as well take the mill down there and mill what’s on the beach – big, huge logs. Export logs.” 

The combination of long droughts and intense flooding may also wreak havoc on dairy, beef and sheep farming, the report says. Cattle begin to experience heat stress in temperatures above 25°C, which will be more common as the climate continues to warm. Māori-held farms tend to occupy hilly and mountainous geography that’s susceptible to erosion, flooding and intense rainfall.

Other urban property holdings in low-lying areas of Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington are susceptible to sea level rise. But, more significantly, many cultural and traditional sites like papa kāinga, marae, urupā and mahinga kai are incredibly vulnerable. The destruction of these sites would have wide-ranging effects on whakapapa, identity and rangatiratanga.

“There are urupā on the coast that get flooded, but what can you do?” says Horomia. “The whānau clean them up, and we try and make it beautiful again, but unfortunately as we get more rain… and there’s a lot more heavy rain than there was when I was growing up.”

Whānau in Horomia’s rohe have discussed moving the marae. During the first severe floods in the early 2000s, the marae board tabled relocating the marae to higher country, but the idea faced resistance from mana whenua who were distraught at the idea of severing the ties to the area. 

“At least half of the whānau didn’t want to, and so we put up the flood banks,” says Horomia. “They didn’t want to move because of the tikanga there, because of the memorial gates that wouldn’t have been the same once they were removed. The connections go back to Ropiha Hautapu who donated that land and the marae to the people.

“It wouldn’t be the same if we moved.”

Zak Horomia inside the fortified gates of Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae that protect it from flooding (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

Instead, the marae was turned into a water-tight fortress. As it is situated on low-lying whenua, floodgates and specialised pump systems have been installed to quickly drain water from the marae grounds, and the perimeter is fortified with concrete and breakwaters. Even still, the increasing severity of flooding and the accompanying slash events concerns Horomia.

“I really worry about another flood. I’m always at the marae checking it.” 

The effects of climate change on marae and urupā has significant implications for Māori mental health, says co-author of He huringa āhuarangi, he huringa ao, Dr Rhys Jones (Ngāti Kahunungu), senior lecturer at the University of Auckland’s faculty of medical and health sciences.

“There’s a particular dimension to that which is about loss of cultural sites of significance. This is not a new experience for us, obviously; through the process of colonisation there has been massive dispossession of land and other resources. That is threatened even more by the impacts of climate change such as sea level rise and coastal erosion, but also a greater likelihood of extreme weather events and things like flooding. We are likely to see that having major impacts on places like marae and urupā, adding another layer to the cultural burden of climate change.”

The government has an obligation to protect sites of cultural significance, says Jones. Te Tiriti o Waitangi guarantees active protection of taonga, and the history of dispossession demands an active approach by the state.

“The government’s role is not just to limit the extent of climate change, but also to protect and reduce the impact of climate change. The government certainly does have a responsibility, particularly given the historical breaches.”

Climate change is also likely to have detrimental effects on the already compromised and inequitable area of Māori healthcare, says Jones. Māori suffer from disproportionate rates of conditions like asthma and rheumatic fever, which are likely to be exacerbated by extreme weather conditions and increasing food insecurity.

“Asthma is a really important condition in this whole area because the impacts are disproportionately borne by Māori in terms of respiratory disease,” says Jones. “One of the impacts of climate change is that it will increase allergens, particularly at certain times of the year. And that has a clear impact on people who have asthma and is likely to increase the severity of asthma. 

“It will exacerbate the inequities that are already there. Similarly so for some of the other respiratory conditions or cardiovascular diseases that put people at higher risk of things like heat-related illness.”

But mātauranga Māori offers solutions that may both mitigate the effects of climate change through increased community resilience as well as create benefits with flow-on effects throughout te ao Māori, Jones says. 

“Mātauranga Māori can also lead us to solutions that are in some ways more innovative and can help to address those multiple challenges more effectively. For example, around housing, from an indigenous perspective we might think about housing development as creating a sort of extended family living arrangement, and providing for community housing.”

“I think we should have optimism because one of the positive things in this whole area is that a lot of the changes that we need to make to respond to the threat of climate change will also be beneficial in many other areas, in terms of improving health outcomes and potentially actually contributing to achieving equity and health.”  

Beyond physical health, Māori identity is intrinsically tied to the environment. Dr Pauline Harris, senior lecturer at the Centre for Science in Society at Victoria University and co-author of the report, says Māori holistic understanding of their relationship with the world around them means they’re acutely aware of the impacts of climate change. But it also means they’re uniquely well placed to guide the response. 

“For Māori we are inherently connected by whakapapa to the environment and everything around us. Through our belief systems and how we were brought up, our connections to the land and the whole world around us grounds us in our relationship and responsibility to the environment,” says Harris.

“Having the fundamental connection and understanding of who you are as a person in relationship to the environment as a whole is something mātauranga Māori can offer to help us all reconnect.”

That reconnection with the environment is essential to start to reset the imbalance in how we treat the planet, says Harris. To mitigate and slow the effects of climate change, we must change the way we live as individuals, she says. That change in behaviour starts with creating a greater connection with the natural world. 

“Understanding that reconnection and the influence you have on the environment and how to live in a more sustainable way is something that mātauranga Māori can contribute to Aotearoa.”

Māori communities have an intimate understanding of Aotearoa, and that knowledge allows them to observe and record the changes happening to their environment, she says. These communities are already seeing major impacts of climate change, pollution and predators on the rivers, beaches, forests and species. 

“Our whānau who have been living on the land for a long time know how things have changed. Even when I was growing up, I remember what the rivers used to be like – we used to always swim in them every summer,” she says.

“My daughter never grew up swimming in rivers as now many are so polluted or overgrown with algae. How we are impacting the environment is affecting how we live, what we do and what we experience.” she says.

Forestry slash litters the East Coast (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

Te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori are intertwined around the natural world, each thread making the other possible. Environmental changes driven by climate change present obstacles to the practice of customs, the retention of traditional knowledge, and the relevance of tikanga like whakataukī that traditionally help Māori make sense of existence.

Taonga species are not just a resource, but a source of physical and spiritual sustenance. Degradation of the mauri of an ecosystem may have deleterious effects on the tikanga associated with that system, says Awatere.  

Functional mātauranga requires a stable and harmonious system in which patterns and predictions can actually assist decision making. When climate change disrupts the balance of the seasons, migrational patterns and weather systems, traditional knowledge is harder to apply.

“More work needs to be done in this space as well in terms of linkages between climate change effects on our ecosystems and how that is changing our seasonal variability, the abundance and the locations of species.” 

The maramataka, or Māori lunar calendar, tracks the movements and phases of the moon, and the effects on the natural environment. But as the environment reacts to the effects of climate change, the maramataka must adjust and adapt in order to more accurately predict and describe the behaviours of ecosystems, says Awatere. There is work being done to fully understand the knowledge that various iwi and hapū have of their local ecosystems through the various seasons, but the challenges of climate change mean that is only the first step in preserving a functional maramataka.

“Once that base knowledge has been recovered, we then need to look at how have those ecosystems changed, given the current impact on them. What should be there, what is there, and what might be there in the future? What cumulative impacts does climate change have?”

The reo is closely connected to the taiao, says Awatere, which lends sounds from birds, animals and weather patterns. Whakataukī are also developed around the behaviours of those environments and animals, and try to create analogies for human behaviour in order to give guidance around how Māori should conduct themselves.

“The IPCC said that climate change poses a risk not only to the wellbeing of indigenous people but the knowledge they have due to the degradation of ecosystems and the impacts they are going to experience from climate change, whether that’s directly through extreme weather events, or indirectly through health-related impacts. 

“With the loss of ecosystems, there is going to be the loss of indigenous knowledge. This report is unique in the national context.”

The community has worked to protect Hinemaurea ki Mangatuna marae from climate change (Photo: Josie McClutchie)

The displacement of iwi and hapū from low lying coastal areas will similarly disrupt the networks of taonga, whānau, whenua and whakapapa that is the structural lattice beneath relationships in te ao Māori. Research suggests such a disruption would result in a loss of wellbeing, trauma, grief and anxiety. One recommendation offered by the report is the enhancement of formal iwi-led recording programs to capture waiata, whakatauki and karakia associated with cultural landscapes. But collecting knowledge alone will not be enough, says Awatere.

“Iwi and hapū need to be included in the decision making around where people may need to be relocated to. If we look at the planning of big agencies like Auckland Council, they are actively engaging with mana whenua to develop these climate change adaptation plans that are informed by a whakaaro Māori perspective. They recognise that there is a Treaty of Waitangi relationship. However those processes are not always implemented well by some regional councils – as minister Mahuta puts it, there may be an issue with capability development.”

Awatere hopes the report will lend iwi and hapū groups the authority to engage with local and central government on more informed and equal terms. Systemic barriers often manifest themselves in difficulties around bureaucratic literacy, says Awatere, and the report provides a meaningful toolkit for whānau, iwi and hapū to mitigate such obstacles.

“There are parallels between the Covid response and the response to climate change. Some agencies are slower on the uptake in regards to getting tangata whenua on board. I hope we don’t see the same mistakes repeated.” 


He huringa āhuarangi, he huringa ao: a changing climate, a changing world was authored by Shaun Awatere (Ngāti Porou), Manaaki Whenua, Darren Ngaru King (Ngāti Raukawa), Taihoro Nukurangi – NIWA, John Reid (Te Arawa), University of Canterbury, Lewis Williams (Ngāi Te Rangi), University of Western Ontario, Bridgette Masters-Awatere (Te Rarawa, Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau, Ngai te Rangi, Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau), University of Waikato, Pauline Harris (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine), Victoria University of Wellington, Natasha Tassell-Matamua (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Makea kei Rarotonga), Massey University, Rhys Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), University of Auckland, Kevin Eastwood  Te Toi Taiao – Supporting Healthy Environments, John Pirker (Ngāi Tahu), University of Canterbury, Anne-Marie Jackson (Ngāti Whātua, Te Roroa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Kahu o Whangaroa), University of Otago

Keep going!
The Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga whānau (Photo: Masanori Udagawa | Big Mark & Co)
The Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga whānau (Photo: Masanori Udagawa | Big Mark & Co)

ĀteaDecember 4, 2021

Ko Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga tēnei: The beating heart of mātauranga Māori

The Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga whānau (Photo: Masanori Udagawa | Big Mark & Co)
The Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga whānau (Photo: Masanori Udagawa | Big Mark & Co)

In 2002, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga was funded as New Zealand’s first Māori centre of research excellence. Twenty years on, it’s a home for Indigenous knowledge and research to create flourishing futures for Māori communities and Aotearoa.

This story was created in paid partnership with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Whāia ngā pae o te māramatanga

Ko te pae tawhiti, whāia kia tata

Ko te pae tata, whakamaua kia tinā

E puta ai ki te whaiao, ki te ao mārama!

 

Search in the innermost recesses of the intellect

To seek new knowledge as yet unexplored

As the past is purchased by the present

And the future is the goal of tomorrow.

In 2019, in a two-part special issue of New Zealand Science Review, guest editors Dr Ocean Mercier (Ngāti Porou) and associate professor Anne-Marie Jackson (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Kahu) dedicated the entire journal to covering the increasing integration of mātauranga Māori and western science in Aotearoa. The special issue created a space to share the experiences of researchers “working with mātauranga alongside New Zealand science”.

In their introduction, the editors succinctly captured what mātauranga is and the growing recognition of its value to the research, science and innovation sector in New Zealand: “Increasingly mātauranga Māori – encompassing Māori knowledge, Māori methods of knowledge creation and Māori ways of knowing – is being consulted, aligned with or brought into conversation with science.”

But 20 years earlier, the environment was not as welcoming of mātauranga Māori. In the early 2000s a group of Māori academics came together out of concern for the way mātauranga Māori was largely hidden in back rooms and niche projects – often cast off as a pseudoscience. They were concerned that Māori scholars were largely isolated within the world of academia. Isolated within disciplines. Isolated within research projects. Isolated within institutions. They wanted to create a collective vision and strategy for the future of Māori research guided by mātauranga. 

Out of that vision, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga was born in 2002. An academic conglomerate of 21 research partners, Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga is a communal home for research-led and conducted by Māori, for Māori. After 20 years, the impact of the work by its researchers reverberates across Aotearoa and the world.

Those involved in its foundational work were dedicated to the idea of building a community of Māori scholars who could make a real difference through the unique value of Indigenous approaches to research. Graham Smith (Ngāti Porou, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Kahungunu) was an instrumental figure in bringing the grand collective concept of a Māori research centre into being. In 2000, when Smith was pro vice-chancellor at the University of Auckland, government funding was announced for the establishment of Centres of Research Excellence (CoRE) ,“inter-institutional research networks” intended to break down the boundaries between tertiary institutions and grow the capability and capacity to contribute to New Zealand’s development.

Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga began as an idea pieced together on the floor of Graham Smith’s office (Photo: Supplied)

Alongside his administrator Te Tuhi Robust, Smith began the groundwork on the concept of a Māori CoRE – floating the idea past the existing Māori senate at the University of Auckland, and getting buy-in from senior staff across the university. Smith says “when we first started out with the idea, inside the university, and across the country, people didn’t even conceive that it was possible that Māori might actually put up something and that it might be really great”. 

In the early days of the new millennium, those who crafted Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga were firmly aware of the political context and it became part of their strategy. From the shadow of Rogernomics – which wreaked havoc on Māori communities, especially those centred on single industries like coal, forestry, and freezing works – emerged the knowledge economy. The downturn in primary industries was met with a desire for new export markets. 

The narrative put forward in the bidding process for funding was composed by “a motley bunch of Māori academics and PhD students” on the floor of Smith’s office. While most other bids had employed external consultants, and had university backing, this wholly Māori bid had no support, no money and very few resources. “So it was on hands and knees, shifting around big pieces of paper, discussing and working out what our kaupapa was,” Smith says.

The bid developed into a plan to build integration and cooperation between institutions across Aotearoa. And perhaps even more importantly, a collaboration of key Māori academics.

The group chose two key themes to put forward as their kaupapa for the CoRE funding. The first was based around science and mātauranga Māori. It rested on an understanding that the melding of these two knowledge systems had the potential to produce new knowledge; knowledge that could make a real difference to Māori. The second kaupapa revolved around the social sciences, with a particular focus on improving the socio-economic conditions of Māori. 

In March 2002 it was announced that Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga was one of five new CoRE to be established from the government’s new $60m fund. It was chosen from 45 original applicants, and a final 11-centre shortlist, by an independent selection panel established by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

In tandem with these kaupapa, was a continuation of the Māori and Indigenous programme, MAI, which at the time was already running across the University of Auckland. The announcement of the MAI programme’s initial goal, to produce 500 Māori PhDs in five years, made the front page of the New Zealand Herald. It was an ambitious objective – when Smith graduated, in 1997, there were only a handful of Māori PhDs running across the country.

The MAI Doctoral Mentoring Programme (Photo: Supplied).

Incorporating the MAI programme into the structure of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga would see the programme flourish, as it extended beyond the University of Auckland and became a national programme. This PhD development became a key part of the work of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga in addressing disparities when it came to Māori participation and success within tertiary education and research training. Between 2002 and 2019, according to the Tertiary Education Commission, 741 Māori PhDs were completed. 

In many ways the creation of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga was part of the movement for greater Māori self determination. At the time, Māori education academics were looking at what made the kura kaupapa and kōhanga movements successful in nurturing and reinforcing te reo Māori me ōna tikanga. Its establishment coincided with the language revitalisation movement and, says Smith, built on a specific “mindset shift” that emerged out of the kaupapa Māori struggle. This gave Māori “the confidence to self enact our own transformation” and as a result, “take more control and responsibility for our own education and learning”. 

Both Graham Smith and Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou), the first co-director with Professor Michael Walker, along with others at the centre of Ngā Pae, had been involved in the politics of the establishment of kura kaupapa, as well as activist group Ngā Tamatoa. “So we had blisters on our hands, ringa raupa,” says Graham Smith. 

The group understood that like schools, academia was a site of struggle where they needed to gather more space for themselves, especially for those Māori academics determined to use Māori methodologies and do work that benefited Māori communities. That meant space to participate within the university sector as researchers in a way that better aligned with their shared aspirations. 

“It was an opportunity to express ourselves around the politics of our time,” says Smith.

First Ngā Pae co-director Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Photo: Supplied)

Broad horizons

The name Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga was given to the organisation by prominent anthropologist, historian, writer and commentator Sir Hirini Moko Mead (Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s father). It means “horizons of insight”, a reference to Ngā Pae’s whakataukī about the pursuit of horizons of understanding so we may emerge into the world of light. The philosophy endorses the idea that excellence isn’t fixed, and is instead about expanding knowledge and moving beyond the perceived horizons. 

As the group established itself within the traditional colonial academic framework, that initial expansion of perception about what Māori researchers could achieve took a lot of effort from the group that launched Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Tuhiwai Smith would shape the first iteration of the centre with founding joint director Professor Michael Walker (Whakatōhea). Their respective academic backgrounds were a reflection of the twin themes of the CoRE: Tuhiwai Smith brought with her a social sciences and administrative background and Walker, a background in science.

After attending an initial meeting about the idea for establishing a Māori science conglomerate in August 2001, Walker hadn’t paid much attention to the progress of the CoRE programme. That was until he learned Graham Smith had put his name on the initial expression of interest for Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. 

As the group went through the funding application, Walker remembers there was little belief they would be successful. They were told there wouldn’t be any room for them at the University of Auckland city campus and they would have to rent their own space. And when they were successful, there was considerable resistance to the group.

Founding co-directors Professor Michael Walker and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, with their famous fathers, Ranginui Walker (L) and Sir Hirini Moko Haerewa Mead (R) (Photo: Supplied)

“It took us longer to get on top of it than others, because there were pre existing systems where a series of science operations would come together and it was simply an integration. Whereas we were creating something from scratch,” Walker said in an interview at the end of his directorship in 2008. 

“Everything we were doing we were doing for the first time. We had to recruit people to build the organisation.”  

The first 12 months continued to be incredibly difficult for the newly formed Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. They encountered constraints from above, and felt a noticeable lack of support from the university.

“I just believe they didn’t think Māori could do it,” Tuhiwai Smith says. “They didn’t believe that we could form a centre of research excellence. The early days were purely based on this idealism we had that we could build something really exciting”.

As a collective, they were conscious of trying to model a different way of doing things, a different concept of excellence, and a different concept of research.

“We didn’t really want it to conform to this idea of elite researchers, working away by themselves with a few stakeholders in mind,” Tuhiwai Smith says. 

They knew that approach wouldn’t work with Māori communities. Instead they built a research model “that was inclusive, that supported the idea of trying to build a community.”

The collective breadth of the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga whānau has allowed it to create this community. From 2007-2010, and then again between 2014-2017, Professor Tracey McIntosh (Ngāi Tuhoe) held directorship roles at Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. A sociologist and criminologist, she found herself working alongside academics from mathematics, biology, education, law, Māori studies and English.

Tracey McIntosh (L) credits Professor Michael Walker with investing in the creation of that cross-sector community that has defined the organisation’s work (Photo: Supplied)

She had crucial involvement in the initial proposal and sat on the inaugural research committee. Her experience on that committee with academics from across the disciplinary spectrum reflects the role Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has played in challenging the traditional boundaries of the university system. 

“It was the most astonishing research committee. It really showed, right from the start, the transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary nature of Ngā Pae’s work,” she says. 

“It’s been normal for us to sit across disciplines with biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, geneticists on the same project.”

While transdisciplinarity is becoming more commonplace in universities, it was a feature of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga from the beginning. McIntosh credits Walker with initially investing in the creation of that cross-sector community that has defined the organisation’s work. 

“Because of Michael’s contribution we had this incredible breadth. It’s been important that it’s shown Māori researchers can have breadth and depth in expertise. I think that the Māori science community feels that Ngā Pae has something to offer and say to them. That’s because of Michael,” McIntosh said as part of the interview in 2008 at the end of her co-directorship with Walker.   

This cross-disciplinary research was strengthened in part by the cohort effect of Māori scholars completing their PhDs together who have been interacting across disciplines from the beginning stages of their career. For many of these students, that’s been facilitated by the MAI PhD programme.

“The one discipline we all shared was the discipline of Māoriness, a discipline of love for our culture, and our communities,” says Tuhiwai Smith. 

It has also meant an ongoing fight for survival. The people making decisions about the funding of Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga were from backgrounds that saw science as falling into specific specialties and were unfamiliar with the idea that research could be captured by a cultural framework, says Tā Tipene O’Regan, the longest serving Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga board chair who served for 12 years before his retirement at the end of 2018.

“Ngā Pae is expected to not only cover a whole culture and research and studies in connection with it, but also a bicultural world. It has a huge potential curriculum,” says O’Regan. “Which usually made a significant problem when it came to the funding rounds because there would be a panel appointed made up usually of a whole collection of people from the Royal Society, who were nearly all science based. They had a fairly narrow concept of a CoRE.” 

O’Regan’s experience as chairman of the Ngāi Tahu Māori Trust Board, leading the iwi before the Waitangi Tribunal in what became the Ngāi Tahu Settlement, was essential for the political mana of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. As the major architect and negotiator of the Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlements of 1989 and 1992, he was accustomed to advocating for Māori cultural outcomes within colonial frameworks. 

“We were dealing with a whole culture, historically and aspirationally. Whereas the people who were reviewing us were unaccustomed to the process. They weren’t equipped to deal with a whole cultural bloc in one box. So that made a lot of the negotiation very challenging. But it was an environment I was used to battling.”

Chief negotiator Sir Tipene O’Regan at the passing the Ngai Tahu bill in 1998 (Photo: Barry Durrant/Getty Images)

A constant hustle

Within this western framework, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has had to constantly fight to prove its value and justify its existence. And in 2014, the years of work establishing the infrastructure, networks and research of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga was nearly dismantled by those who couldn’t appreciate its value and potential. The centre was initially not shortlisted by the Royal Society of New Zealand for further CoRE funding from the Tertiary Education Commission. Without that funding Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga had no way to continue its work and no way to survive.

The decision was met with dismay nationally and internationally. Speaking at a Value of Māori Research hui in March 2014, Dr Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, director from 2009 to 2014, expressed “disquiet and protest” about the verdict and its implications for Māori research. If Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga ceased to exist, Royal feared the progress it had made, but more importantly the potential of the communities it worked for would be abandoned. 

“The decision not to shortlist Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga is incredibly short sighted. Ultimately the cost comes down upon our communities for whom we conduct research and where the benefits of our work go. And that is the most saddening thing for me, that this profoundly important capability… is endangered with this decision,” he said. 

“We cannot let that capability, this opportunity, these relationships, this momentum, this energy, this way of thinking about life merely go by the by, simply because of the decision by six people in Wellington.”

Advocates for Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga described the decision as failure to understand the potential of Māori communities and the power of Māori research and knowledge to allow them to find that potential. In a statement on the decision Linda Tuhiwai Smith wrote “what tumbles down is a national infrastructure that could support Māori development across a range of dimensions that simply can not be provided for by existing institutions.” 

Royal feared it would undermine decades of work to have Māori voices and perspectives prioritised when research and decisions are being made about Māori communities. 

“We have fought very hard to stop looking at Māori issues merely as a bunch of needs. They ought to be put through the lens of the potential of a community, not their problems,” Royal said in his 2014 speech. 

“This is what social transformation and equity is about. It’s about the positive transformation of ourselves as a people going forward in a way that is meaningful to us, so we don’t consider ourselves through the lens of a bunch of external agencies as a bunch of needs and problems. We are people replete with potential and actual contribution, we have goals we wish to transform ourselves, and along the way address some of the needs we do have. I’m pretty much describing what Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga does.” 

Months of political manoeuvring, community advocac and media coverage – including the close involvement of the Māori Party, who had a confidence and supply agreement with the National government – saw an announcement for five years of funding for a Māori CoRE in the 2014 budget. However, this meant Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga had to prepare a new funding bid for the second year in a row – a hugely demanding process that this time put Māori researchers in direct opposition to each other. To lead the centre through the process, associate professor Tracey McIntosh was again appointed as director of the centre (after previously holding the co-director role from 2007-2009). 

In early 2015, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga were notified they were one of three bids; in May it was awarded funding for a further five years (although reduced funding). How close the centre came to being wound up, and how hard it has to constantly fight to stay alive shows the hostile environment mātauranga Māori is always working within, says O’Regan. 

“I went to Pita Sharples, and we both went together to see Bill English, we came back reduced but alive. We were alive and living and could function. We owe a debt to English – who saw the argument – and Pita who used his political position at the time to secure his boss’s attention and we got it,” he says.  

“That was real hustle, but it was the kind of hustle I had done for my own Ngāi Tahu people for nearly 60 years now. We had to know where the levers were and we made it happen.” 

The campaign to secure the future Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga saw the community of Māori academics galvanise around the centre. It led to a greater understanding of the potential of a centre for Māori academics across the country and cemented Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga as the national home of Māori research.

Ngā Pae 4.0

While the research subject areas are diverse, they share a kaupapa and focus on creating transformative change within institutionalised and community settings. At the same time as engaging in their particular disciplines, Māori researchers are drawing on mātauranga Māori. It’s “in those liminal spaces where the disciplines have to work hard to speak to each other,” Mccintosh says, “where you get some really incredibly innovative knowledge generation.” 

The work Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has helped establish is a new type of research that works across boundaries, involves communities and importantly, puts collective usefulness ahead of personal interest. This has allowed different fields to combine their knowledge and collaborate to solve real problems, says Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora (Te Aitanga a Hauiti, Ngāi Tūhoe) who has held the co-director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga role since 2017.

As Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has matured, it’s introduced a new set of research themes, significantly different to its previous programmes, which shape the nature of the research they nurture: Whai Rawa: Māori Economies, Te Tai Ao: The Natural Environment, and Mauri Ora: Human Flourishing. These research themes are upheld by a central pou, te reo me ngā tikanga Māori – Māori language and protocols. Te reo me ngā tikanga Māori are essential expressions of Māori philosophy, knowledge, practice and identities, embedded into the fabric of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and woven into each of the research themes. 

“What you end up with is a people who are able to fuse, they create fusions of knowledge in order to actually solve problems,” says Nikora.

Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora, who has held the co-director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga role since 2017 (Photo: Grant Maiden/University of Otago Press)

Over the last 20 years, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has played a critical role in increasing the capacity, capability and mātauranga of Māori researchers, says Professor Tahu Kukutai (Ngāti Tīpā, Ngāti Mahanga, Ngāti Kinohaku, Te Aupōuri), who was appointed as co-director in July. Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, she says is “an unapologetically Māori presence in the research landscape – that really wouldn’t have been possible without collectivism and leadership”. 

Though the research sector as a whole has slowly shifted to prioritise real world outcomes, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has been focused on impact since its inception. It represented a contrast to the tendency within the academic world of doing research for research sake. 

“In many ways, we were ahead of our time in terms of focusing not just on narrow metrics of excellence and world leading journals, but actually what makes a difference,” says Kukutai.

The MAI programme has facilitated this development by producing Māori academics with a relentless consciousness about working for Māori. 

“Our researchers are motivated as kairangahau Māori. When you come from a group of people who have been marginalised on your own whenua, you can’t help but be motivated by an ethic for contribution and trying to make things better,” says Kukutai. 

Professor Jacinta Ruru (Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Maniapoto) was an early-career academic when Ngā Pae came into being. As a lonely Māori law academic in her own faculty at the University of Otago, she watched its development intently. Following the growth of Ngā Pae gave her confidence as a Māori person within New Zealand’s research environment.

“It’s critical, it gives us the confidence as Māori to be who we can be, it helps make us be the best that we can be as academics,” she says.

In 2016, Ruru became Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga co-director alongside Tracey McIntosh. She believes Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga provides profound empowerment by giving Māori academics from across the country a place to be able to sit together through their academic journeys, from PhD and into their careers. 

“It gives us the ability to be able to have conversations with Māori who are experts from different disciplines, from different iwi, different lived experiences of being Māori and have all those really incredibly rich conversations,” she says.

In 2016 Jacinta Ruru became Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga co-director alongside Tracey McIntosh (Photo: Grant Maiden/University of Otago Press)

The cycle of funding reapplication is a constant challenge for Ngā Pae that creates uncertainty for the organisation. In 2020, Ngā Pae secured eight years of funding. Their previous in 2016, only gave them five years of security. 

“We’ve not had a funding increase for at least 10 years,” says Nikora. “And because of that, we’re actually running on less dollars than what we were running on 10 years ago.”

Many of those who have played a role in building Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga would like to see the government give the organisation a permanent place in the academic landscape of Aotearoa, through long term funding. Freeing the centre from the ongoing and highly competitive re-bid process would allow the freedom to plan for the future.

“It’s a treasure for this country, it’s a taonga that’s been cared for and loved by Māori students and Māori staff for nearly 20 years,” she says. 

Ruru believes that through Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, that the tertiary sector, the crown and the country as a whole can begin to truly meet Te Tiriti expectations. Especially as the calls to acknowledge mātauranga, te reo Māori and tikanga grow louder and become more widespread. 

“Ngā Pae ought to be recognised as a shining light as to the way forward to be able to do that,” she says.

The government has found the means to prioritise research in the science sector, for example, Crown Research Institutes and entities like the New Zealand Law Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. These entities give the government independent advice on legal reform and the environment. Ruru believes there’s no reason the government couldn’t prioritise the need for Māori-led research in the same way through “something as unique, and important, and prominent as Ngā Pae”. 

Mātauranga Māori – and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga – should have a much more prominent role in informing and influencing decisions made by the central government, says current co-director Tahu Kukutai. Decision makers, she says, tend to “have their own very narrow view of what constitutes science and knowledge and evidence”. While those decisions are often framed as evidence based, too often they’re not taking into account Māori research. There’s space there for Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga to connect more of their research to policy and decision making to ensure Māori communities are not simply acted upon – but instead have mana motuhake

“A very clear example of this is the government’s pandemic response. Had they taken seriously the advice given by our Māori health experts and community leaders, much of what we see playing out now might have been averted,” says Kukutai. 

It’s essential to acknowledge the whakapapa of the centre, says co-director Tahu Kukutai (Photo: Grant Maiden/University of Otago Press)

Disregarding Māori research and knowledge isn’t just to the detriment of Māori, but to Aotearoa as a whole, she says. She points to the country’s unique demographics – one of the most diverse populations in the world, high rates of immigration and a large Indigenous population – that requires a bespoke approach informed by Indigenous knowledge. “We have all these elements in Aotearoa that you don’t see replicated anywhere else – so we actually need a fit for purpose approach,” Kukutai says.

Whether it’s research or beyond, “everything Māori is political”, says Mccintosh. This politically charged quality is just one reason she believes Māori scholarship and knowledge should be informing the most important debates nationally and globally. When it comes to contemporary issues, whether they’re on a global scale like the climate crises or the Covid-19 pandemic, or specific local challenges such as health inequity or the criminal justice system, it’s essential that we draw on a broad range of knowledge traditions. Complex, difficult problems, need to be met with evidence informed solutions. And these solutions, McIntosh says, need to be culturally informed too. 

Beyond Aotearoa, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has made a significant contribution in helping to establish a global Indigenous community within academia. Relationships have been forged between its directors and researchers, and Indigenous researchers in Australia, Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Americas. In its tuakana-like role, the pursuits and achievements of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga have influenced Indigenous scholarship across the world. 

The MAI PhD programme was adopted in Canada as the SAGE programme, across three provinces. Conferences hosted by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga are renowned for attracting leading Indigenous scholars and research contributions. Now Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga have established AlterNative, a leading international Indigenous journal that draws on Indigenous scholarship from across the globe. 

“I think the spread and influence has been quite considerable. I think one of the big positives for Ngā Pae has been its influence as a model,” says Tā Tipene O’Regan. 

“When we bring those people from overseas to the Ngā Pae conference, we are spreading that notion and enhancing that idea that people who live on an island need not themselves be insular. I think that is an important concept.” 

Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga has made vital space for the emergence of Māori knowledge, and its validity and legitimacy within the world of academia. Carrying on this legacy that others have built helps inform Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga’s vision for the future of the CoRE. 

“This is Ngā Pae 4.0,” says Kukutai. “It’s about appreciating the whakapapa of where it’s come from.” 

The power of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga is in the foundational work that was done to establish it, and the courage it took to demand an investment in Māori cultural ways of doing things as being valid and legitimate. Part of this is acknowledging that while other centres of research excellence come from disciplines “that have hundreds of years of institutional support and acknowledgement” – a fact that is easily taken for granted – Ngā Pae has had to build that same infrastructure and legitimacy almost from scratch. 

But not entirely from scratch, Kukutai adds. The foundations of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga are great Māori thought leaders, whose knowledge was informed by centuries of mātauranga. Today, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga is an expression of the collective aspirations of Māori scholars across disciplines, institutions and Aotearoa. There is significant knowledge to be found within this 20-year history for those carrying this vision into the future, beyond the current horizon.

But wait there's more!