• Internship project

    Project commenced:

    This ummer intern project will document Māori community engagement with open days and public observatories as a means of achieving the goals of transformative education in a more culturally appropriate and publicly accessible form.

  • Internship project

    Project commenced:

    The purpose of this summer intern project is to source information (cultural and spatial) that describes the student’s relationship to their marae in preparation for learning how to use spatial information technology to create maps of their ancestral landscapes. 
    This project will develop skillsets of blending modern ICT with oral narratives (mōteatea, lore of the land, pūrākau). The student will join the Te Koronga: Indigenous Science Research Theme at the University of Otago.

    Intern - Courtney Sullivan
    Ngāti Awa, Taranaki, Ngāti Maru
    University of Otago
    Supervisor - Dr Hauiti Hakopa
    University of Otago, Te Koronga

  • Case study

    Project commenced:

    Te Aho Tapu

    What are the links between environmental integrity and the health, wellbeing and wealth of Indigenous communities?

    Ensuring the sustainable management of our natural resources is increasingly becoming an issue of national and international concern, and understandably so.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    What can be learnt and applied now from traditional knowledge and adaptation to future environmental and resource issues?

    This project seeks to understand how quickly early Māori society changed from its initial wasteful use of environmental resources soon after the Polynesian migrations, to then live within its ecological means in the face of resource decline pressures. These pressures were largely caused by ongoing extinctions and depletion, compounded by adverse climate change during the period 1350-1900.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    How can New Zealand’s state legal system recalibrate to challenge the Crown’s assumption of sovereignty over lands and waters treasured by Māori?

    Drawing on the research findings of the other Te Tai Ao foundational projects, this project will lead to new laws, policies, plans and models for government and iwi/Māori communities, and will enable Māori to reassert traditional knowledge in governing land, water and resources to better enable flourishing Māori health, wellbeing and prosperity. 

  • Phil’s research has used ecological science and indigenous and local knowledge to interpret changes in demographic trends and abundance of wildlife populations (e.g. terrestrial and marine birds). The key focus of his research has been on climatic and anthropogenic (e.g. harvest) drivers of population change, and the development of models to forecast population trends. He has expertise in interpreting ecosystem structure and function within scientific and indigenous worldviews, in particular the ways that different cultures ‘sense’ the environment.

  • Kia Tō Kia Tipu - Seeding Excellence

    Project commenced:

    How can a pūtaiao ‘living laboratory’ approach that uses local learning environments help rangatahi Māori reclaim science in Te Hiku?

    Our aim is to “science-up” Māori communities by exploring the untapped potential of our

    local environments as living laboratories for rangatahi Māori so that they become more engaged with science at school and in their lives. The proposal responds to needed improvements in science education outcomes for Te Hiku rangatahi and will inform and contribute to new initiatives to be negotiated with education authorities and environmental strategies that strengthen Māori medium and mainstream science education for rangatahi Maori.

  • Scoping project

    Project commenced:

    Our main question is ‘do hapū and Iwi  views  and practices provide an alternative paradigm to New Zealand’s biosecurity system to better protect our taonga species?

    Māori have developed practices and methods such as the use of ritenga (customs, laws, and protocols) and whakapapa (species assemblages within a holistic ecosystem paradigm) to mitigate risks and threats to both endemic biodiversity and primary production systems from pests, weeds and pathogens. However, the 21st century has seen a rapid increase in species introductions to New Zealand, with dramatic consequences for both Māori livelihoods and cultural integrity.

  • Ngāi Tahu

    John's fields of research include marine ecology, aquaculture and marine algae and his research interests centre around aquaculture.

    His disciplines include ecology, evolution and behaviour within marine ecological systems and he belongs to the Māori Research Advisory Group (MRAG) and Marine Ecology Research Group (MERG)

  • Te Arawa Ngāti Whakaue Ngāti Pikiao Te Whānau a Āpanui
    Scientist - Māori Environmental Research (Te Kūwaha)

    Erica (Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pikiao, Te Whānau ā Apanui) started at NIWA in 1995. After completing a MSc (University of Waikato) developing a blue mussel embryo-larval toxicity test, she spent a number of years in the NIWA freshwater fisheries team. Here she gained skills in fish population studies, the downstream migration adult eels and fish passage through culverts.

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