Source
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/case-study/conversation-about-future-dr-shaun-awatere — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
Practitioner interview with Dr Shaun Awatere (Ngāti Porou), a leading NZ researcher in mātauranga Māori and environmental management. Covers kaitiakitanga as a governance and ecological ethic, dual-worldview governance in NZ natural resource management, real NZ co-governance case studies, and Māori community responses to climate change and sea-level rise. Data quality is medium — high-quality practitioner voice from a credible NZ expert, but not peer-reviewed.
Key claims
Kaitiakitanga and mātauranga Māori (I03)
- Kaitiakitanga is defined as connectedness, responsibility, people and environment — deeper than “stewardship”; it encompasses the responsibility to look after natural resources for one’s children, mokopuna, and their children; the antithesis of the individualistic profit-maximisation approach. OT_012
- Kaitiakitanga is underpinned by whakapapa — genealogical and place-based connection; the ability to carry out kaitiakitanga depends on whether you have that genealogical or longstanding connection to an area. OT_012
- Mātauranga Māori functions as an ecological knowledge system: stories and narratives carry real geophysical data. The taniwha (spiritual guardian) associated with a creek at Matatā (Bay of Plenty) encoded knowledge about an unstable stream course — iwi and hapū warned engineers “Don’t build the road there, there’s a taniwha”; engineers dismissed this as “mumbo jumbo,” built the road, and the unstable ground caused it to sink and shift; now costing Western Bay of Plenty millions to relocate houses built in the flood zone. OT_012
- Colonisation changed Māori from seasonally mobile resource users (affiliating to multiple places through intermarriage, moving between coastal and hill-country settlements seasonally) to fixed land tenure; tūrangawaewae (place to stand) identity is now place-fixed in ways that create complexity for climate-driven relocation decisions. OT_012
Co-governance and collaborative governance (I05)
- Diverse governance representation — iwi, hapū, farming community, commercial fishing, aquaculture, local government — produces outcomes that are more long-term, intergenerational, and holistic; when only business interests are at the table, decision-making becomes about shareholder value and export-led growth. OT_012
- Two NZ co-governance cases: (1) Waiapu Kōkā Huhua — collaborative governance group for the Waiapu River (East Coast), diverse stakeholders, long process, achieved shared outcomes and objectives; (2) Tai Timu Tai Pari / Hauraki Gulf Marine Spatial Plan — farming, fishing, aquaculture, iwi and hapū, local government in a marine governance process. OT_012
- Collaborative governance failure mode: political directives and lobby groups can override community-developed solutions after years of collaborative work; strong facilitation, clear underlying principles, and proactive protection of diverse voices are required to prevent collective outcomes from being captured by the loudest stakeholder. OT_012
- Community leadership is the critical variable: “you’ve got to have good leadership at the community level in order to get people on board with the vision the group has come up with”; lack of distributed leadership overloads key individuals and causes the process to become chaotic. OT_012
Climate resilience and intergenerational framing (I06)
- When core priorities are kaitiakitanga and intergenerational equity rather than profit maximisation, communities seek a balanced approach to climate change — neither purely restorative nor purely adaptive, but focused on near-term wellbeing (jobs, training) while transitioning to alternative forms of economic production. OT_012
- Sea-level rise creates a tūrangawaewae crisis for Māori communities: identity is bound to maunga, river, and tūrangawaewae; if that place is inundated, deciding where the “next standing place” will be requires strong community leadership and cultural grounding in intergenerational thinking rather than short-term attachment to fixed property. OT_012
SSI connections
- I03 Local wisdom & cultural heritage — kaitiakitanga as the foundational NZ Māori ecological stewardship ethic; mātauranga Māori as an ecological knowledge system carrying geophysical data through narrative; colonisation’s disruption of seasonal mobility and its implications for knowledge transmission. The peer-reviewed, Māori-authored companion treatment of these values (kaitiakitanga as an active environmental ethic; tino rangatiratanga as self-determination), by the same author (Awatere), is LIT_132.
- I05 Good governance & transparency — two real NZ co-governance cases (Waiapu River, Hauraki Gulf); collaborative governance failure modes; community leadership as the critical enabling variable.
- I06 Resistance to external shocks — kaitiakitanga/intergenerational equity framing for climate adaptation; sea-level rise and tūrangawaewae identity; community decision-making for climate-driven relocation.
Research targets
No specific documents identified for retrieval from this source.
Connections
Links to
Sources (1): LIT_132
Referenced by
SSI indicators (3): I03: Local Wisdom & Cultural Heritage · I05: Good Governance & Transparency · I06: Resistance to External Shocks
Sources (1): LIT_132