In response to the global climate crisis, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington embarked on an ambitious Living Pā building project to construct a 3,000-square-metre three-storey learning, teaching, research and engagement space as part of Te Herenga Waka Marae on its Kelburn Campus. While preparing to move into the new building, a research team investigated how the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge™ sustainability principles that underpin the Living Pā project could complement the tikanga Māori that regulate the marae community.

For Māori, pūrākau are oral narratives of place passed through generations and sustained as a weaving of past, present and future connections with land. Pūrākau are a central force in Indigenous knowledges of whenua and essential to meaningful design of Aotearoa environments. Critically, 80% of marae are sited in low-lying coastal or flood-prone areas, amplifying the vulnerability of whenua Māori to the escalating impacts of changing climates.

This article is about the utilisation of whenua Māori in the context of climate change and its implications for owners, governors and managers of such lands. The article draws on existing literature and employs a whānau-centric methodology to discuss Māori land-owning entities and their awareness of, preparedness for and action on the matter of climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand. Forty-five survey respondents and interviews with three governors of Māori authorities provided data for the following research question: What is the state of Māori authority readiness for climate change and its effect on whenua Māori utilisation?

The kākāpō, a nocturnal parrot native to Aotearoa New Zealand, embodies resilience and rarity. Once found across the country, this taonga species is now critically endangered, threatened by habitat loss and predators, and requiring major conservation efforts. This article is an attempt to retrieve mātauranga Māori about the kākāpō by exploring its role in cosmology, material culture and oral traditions. Our search of the literature, mōteatea and waiata archives, and museums resulted in very few references of central interest to this study. Most references concerned the kākāpō’s decline and conservation.

Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity through compounding ecological disasters. A focus on global averages tends to hide dramatic differences and mask health disparities that exist for Indigenous people. For 21 years, district health boards (DHBs) were responsible for providing or funding the provision of health services across Aotearoa. The introduction of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022 disestablished DHBs and offered an opportunity to reshape health in ways that give serious consideration to climate change impacts. The need to give greater consideration to Indigenous people in climate change conversations is essential.

Abstract

The article adopts a novel pūkenga-based approach to develop a narrative of extreme weather events informed by Indigenous knowledge. Three key findings, identified from co-learning amongst Indigenous researchers and pūkenga, are seen as required to formally (re)generate knowledges-in-place. First, an understanding of causal factors reveals the collapse of local knowledge narratives and the need to renew these.

Te Pokohiwi o Kupe | Wairau Bar in the Marlborough region is where one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s earliest archaeological heritage sites is located, dating back to the early 1300s. This article describes a baseline study to map the effects of present-day and future sea levels on archaeological heritage land at Te Pokohiwi ō Kupe. Results suggest that approximately 20% of the heritage land is susceptible to a 100-year storm-wave inundation under present climate and sea-level conditions. With 1 m of sea-level rise likely to be reached between 2070 and 2130, approximately 75% of heritage land will be compromised by a 100-year storm inundation event.

The first 2024 issue for MAI Journal, Volume 13, Issue 1 contains 12 articles of different subjects and 1 Commentary.  This reflects the multi-disciplinary approach for NPM research in Aotearoa.  From Traditional Knowledges to a Framework for Vision Matauranga and Safer travel options for tamariki to Reinvigorating homeplaces for our whanau and communities, we see the different areas of research undertaken by our researchers and authors in this issue for 2024.