Skip to content

Kia Manawaroa Kia Puawai: Enduring Māori Livelihoods webinar

Back a level
In this section
Shaun Awatere and Nikki Harcourt deliver a webinar presentation on He Waka Taurua, a metaphorical framework, by showing how it was applied in a Māori agribusiness - Whakatāwai Station.

Our waterways are under pressure, their mauri (life-force) has diminished; our economic growth is fast approaching environmental limits, almost 4000 of our indigenous plant and animal species are currently threatened with or at risk of extinction, and our biodiversity has declined significantly.

Increasingly stringent regulations are being rolled out by policy makers to protect natural systems, but these are framed by Eurocentric measures and concepts. If we are to achieve our vision to improve the health of te taiao (the environment) and our people, we need to change the way that people interact with their environment from a position of extractive resource use to one of reciprocal exchange.

Te Ao Māori thinking offers us a pathway forward to achieving sustainable livelihoods that enable both the natural world and humans to prosper. In this presentation we showcase the operationalisation of He Waka Taurua, a framework for collaborative partnership based on the dual elevation of both Te Ao Māori and western science knowledge systems, through a Māori agribusiness case study.