Pou Rāhui

The collaborative project will work with five iwi (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Hei and Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea) that have implemented rāhui or temporary legislative closures for identified species and spaces, in the degraded waters of Tīkapa and Te Moananui-ā-Toi. This intergenerational project will be a co-production across iwi experiencing similar catastrophic impacts in the moana to embark on innovative, replicable, pragmatic, in-water, mātauranga Māori solutions and actions to assist the regeneration and restoration of rohe moana.

Many areas of the world that contain high levels of biodiversity are also the areas in which Indigenous peoples are found. Indigenous cultural beliefs and practices are often found to be a key factor in apparent long-term sustainable use of resources by many groups around the world. This is especially pertinent to maintaining the health and resilience of marine environments and the relevance of integrated human-nature concepts. Identifying ways in which mātauranga Māori scholarship and place-based participatory practice can be captured and incorporated through co-developed transdisciplinary methods is a high priority.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, there is an increasing demand to investigate alternative ways of accessing, engaging and implementing mātauranga Māori to better understand degradation (e.g., declining populations, sedimentation, climate change, predation) and assist restoration initiatives (e.g., marine cultural monitoring, restorative aquaculture, bio-waste alternatives to plastic, technological tools) for culturally and ecologically important marine taonga species and spaces into the future. This project will deliver new solutions for restoring and managing rohe moana and kaimoana for present and future generations.