Ecological practitioners and research experts share their ideas about restoration programmes, rangatiratanga rights and building partnerships.
Questions for discussion:
- Each person in this video provides a unique and personal perspective on restoration. Which perspective is of special interest to you?
- How do you think these types of conversations enhance ecological restoration projects?
Transcript
Robert McGowan
The most important thing we have to do in New Zealand is look after our waters. And everybody is moaning and groaning, you know, because it means sacrificing, but if we want clean water, we have to take responsibility. And if we want people who live in the country to look after their wetlands and their waterways, we have to contribute, we have to help. Our future doesn’t depend on government policy. It depends on my taking responsibility and we working together. We are the ones that hold New Zealand’s future. I think in terms of restoring wetlands, we need to restore the memories around those places.
Shannon Te Huia
So knowing that there was once a pā or a village there and these hapū were there and tracing that right back to the waka. The land was taken and you were then told to go, and two generations before you have not been able to go there, and now all of a sudden, you’re there. You’re, the same blood, is there, and you’re healing that whenua.
Dr Shaun Awatere
My role as a researcher has involved looking at how iwi and hapū, how the community and how local councils, local governments come together in order to realise shared outcomes. For example, this repo here, people all came together to help restore the mauri or the wellbeing. My main message learned from a number of experiences of being part of processes that have really encouraged people to come together is really around recognising the rangatiratanga rights that iwi and hapū have with respect to guiding and shaping a restoration project.
Dr Ian Kusabs
We always start with the local kaumātua and the whānau. First of all, it’s a courtesy thing. And also we can share knowledge with each other, like they often have all the mātauranga of what species were there, how it was harvested, times of year. You know, it’s a relationship and it’s a partnership.
Cheri van Schravendijk-Goodman
Cross-cultural conversations are important to get us out of that siloed approach that can often be applied to restoration. And it’s no disrespect to scientists, it’s just the way we roll. Those cross-cultural understandings allow us then to be able to sit down and talk about the whole whakapapa and then figure out how each person within that research team or that programme of action are able to then bring their skillsets together to help inform and enhance the wider, more holistic story.
Acknowledgements
Footage, Rob McGowan watering seedlings, from Waka Huia, Scottie Productions
Footage of Pūniu River Care Incorporated kaimahi riparian planting, Waikato River Authority
Photo of repo rōpū, Yvonne Taura, DOC holding a hui with Waikato whānau, Cheri van Schravendijk-Goodman. Both sourced from Te Reo o Te Repo – The Voice of the Wetland
Photo ‘Rama kōura’, children silhouetted on lakes edge, and footage of kōura on lake bottom, whakaweku, and men hauling in whakaweku, Dr Ian Kusabs
