By Bruce Gilkison FCA and Holly Hart

In June 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand celebrated Matariki for the first time with a public holiday. The occasion, the mid-winter rising of the Matariki star cluster (also known as Pleiades or the seven sisters) has long been celebrated by Māori. It’s a time to reflect on the past, including those who have been lost. And it’s a time to connect with nature, a time of hope and rebirth, and a time to consider challenges and future priorities.

With climate, biodiversity and much more in crisis, sources of learning and wisdom are urgently needed. Increasingly, for many people and organisations in New Zealand, these sources include Indigenous knowledge – not necessarily as a replacement for other sources, but in addition to.

First Nations leaders in Canada encourage ‘twoeyed seeing’, with Indigenous knowledge being considered alongside Western science. The aim is not to merge them, but to weave them together, so each keeps its integrity and enhances the other.

A similar approach was proposed by Māori leader Sir Āpirana Ngata a century ago. He advocated “casting our nets between” Māori and non-Māori knowledge, rather than fishing in just one.

We are facing unprecedented threats. Current business practices have delivered great material wealth, but are they destroying the natural systems that sustain us? We need to cast our nets wider for better solutions.

All things are connected

A key concept in te ao Māori – an Indigenous worldview – is the connectedness of all things: plants, animals, earth, water and sky. People and their ancestors are part of nature, not separate from it. This builds respect for the natural world, and its protection is paramount. This differs from a Eurocentric view, which typically gives people dominion over nature, often with adverse effects. It’s hard to respect and care for something we do not see ourselves a part of.

This connectedness encourages a long-term view of land, people and living things, past and future, and extends to the corporate world.

Wakatū Incorporation, a company with broad Māori ownership, exemplifies this. It developed a 500-year intergenerational plan in which all activities – economic, social and environmental – must align. Such a time frame focuses minds on ways that actions today have long-term impacts.

It fits well with the company’s philosophy “to be good ancestors”.

Connectedness also builds a sense of guardianship (kaitiakitanga) in which damage and waste must be avoided or remedied. It differs from a linear business model of extraction, production, consumption and disposal. It is better aligned with a circular economy in which all material is reused, and with regenerative farming and zero-waste strategies, increasingly seen as vital.

To Māori, water is a treasure (taonga). Water quality in rivers and lakes has suffered in recent years, with various actions being taken by Māori to try to reverse this. Kaitiakitanga involves protecting and enhancing the health of the environment.

Large-scale farming can be a significant polluter of water and source of greenhouse gases. But for Ngāi Tahu Farming, a Māori-owned farm and forestry operation, there are four bottom lines: social, environmental, cultural and financial. If the first three aren’t met the company doesn’t even consider the financial possibilities.

Seeing through a Māori lens

Recently the close connection of Māori with the environment has been formally recognised in some innovative ways. In 2014, New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant “legal personality” to a natural feature, Te Urewera, a rugged, forested North Island region. Three years later, similar status was granted to the Whanganui River and then to Mount Taranaki. These places are ancestors and taonga to their people. For Māori of Whanganui, “I am the river, the river is me”.

These areas now have permanent protection and even the ability to defend themselves in court.

Pictured: Te Urewera is home to the largest area of native forest in the North Island and was the first place to be recognised as an independent legal identity in perpetuity in 2014

Many organisations are now using a Māori lens to understand and explain their own roles and impacts – not just out of respect but because it is often a better way. The Treasury is adopting a “holistic, intergenerational approach to wellbeing” based on Māori knowledge and culture.

Environment Aotearoa 2022, the latest government review of ecosystem health, uses a Māori culture framework to present its scientific findings and describe the contributions and risks of these to wellbeing. The Aotearoa Circle, an influential group of public and business sector leaders, embraces Māori knowledge not just for what is known, but how it is known: “the way of perceiving and understanding the world”.

Māori businesses tend to embed these values deeply and have been proactive on climate issues. A recent Stats NZ survey found that over half of Māori authorities, compared with just one-third of all New Zealand businesses, took action in response to climate change in the past two years.

Māori authorities and businesses have shown healthy growth in recent years, often outperforming the overall economy. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s head of sustainability, Florence Van Dyke, said Māori businesses are the gold standard for sustainability internationally, with their intergenerational focus and strong links between people and place.

This philosophy is embraced by the governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Adrian Orr, who says, “The inclusion of a te ao Māori view encourages us to think holistically and long-term.”

Pictured: Whanganui River flows through the heart of New Zealand’s North Island and was granted legal personhood in 2017

Shared values and a long-term view

Worldwide, other Indigenous cultures share this understanding of connectedness.

The 2021 Australia State of the Environment report recognises Indigenous peoples for their role in caring for Country as kin. “Indigenous peoples’ stewardship of Country is a deep connection, passed down through generations and developed over tens of thousands of years.”

Many Indigenous cultures take a long-term view. The Haudenosaunee of North America consider that actions taken now should benefit people seven generations into the future.

A priority is to safeguard key resources. Traditional fishing methods in British Columbia, Canada include the release of salmon in proportions needed to maintain a balance of species. This contrasts with some commercial practices such as in the northwest Atlantic cod fishery, once thought to be inexhaustible, until decades of mismanagement and overfishing led to its total collapse in the 1990s.

The role of Indigenous knowledge is now being embraced more widely. The World Bank states, “While Indigenous peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks.”

“While Indigenous peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity.”

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services says Indigenous peoples “are often better placed than scientists to provide detailed information on local biodiversity and environmental change.” The organisation says one million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction, so action is urgent.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development, a think-tank, salutes Indigenous and local communities that manage at least 24% of the above-ground carbon in the world’s tropical forests, saying, “without them, we cannot win the race to save the planet.”

But it’s complicated. Many Indigenous peoples risk alienation from their land and many could not prove in court that areas they have occupied for hundreds of years are theirs. This opens the way for industries to make claims for resource extraction, sometimes pursued violently. Bolstering traditional occupation rights could enhance outcomes for these groups and for climate and nature.

Litigation and diplomacy can help. In a landmark case, the United Nations Human Rights Committee upheld a claim brought by Torres Strait Islanders that the Australian Government is violating its obligations to them through climate change inaction. A claimant declared, “This is for future generations so that they won’t be disconnected from their island homes.” Globally, climate change-related cases doubled between 2015 and 2022, and certainly these will increase.

Disproportionately affected by climate change are Indigenous communities: from heat, storms, drought, fire and flooding. Most of them have contributed little to the problem.

But affected communities are not just waiting for disaster or help to arrive. A Kenyan woman, Wangari Maathai, started a movement which planted 51 million trees, and Ethiopia has undertaken a massive reforestation program.

In Niger, West Africa, “farmer-managed natural regeneration” is boosting crops, storing carbon and restoring water tables.

Now is the future

The world is facing climate disruption and loss of the biodiversity we need to survive. The United Nations secretary-general António Guterres spoke plainly about its 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report saying it’s “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable.”

We need to remember that humans do not have dominion over nature, we are simply part of it and dependent on it. A more holistic view is required for a better future.

Indigenous values and practices, in Aotearoa and elsewhere, offer inspiration and ideas we can all learn from. We should act on these, and strive to be better ancestors.

From CA Library