Week 8

• Mechanism to reduce issues of heritage or biodiversity

  1. Ministry of Māori development- help support treaty processes, land disputes and improvement

  2. EIA, environmental impact assessments, and cultural assessments, must be consulted through the RMA 1991
• Exploring how the different spheres can connect together
• Identity verses economic opportunity

  • Loss of whenua through land use and land conversion - decreasing health and wellbeing of Māori. Eg. Ihumātao, Pongakawa
  • Māori landowners work together to develop farming businesses and economic rangatiratanga. Eg. Real estate development, converting sheep farms to kiwifruit orchards
  • This is mainly occurring in Tauranga- economic opportunity that cannot be turned down as it produces more revenue than dairy farming
• Ngai Tahu farms


  • Leading the way with regenerative farming, converting some of the dairy farms
  • Taking measures like soil conservation and increasing biodiversity
• Archaeological sites are being destroyed
• Waterways and soils are impacted- substantial carbon release through this process
• Significance of these areas is not easy to register with councils, thus heritage and biodiversity is in danger
• Legal personhood status


  Referring to the environment- such as bodies of water having legal status e.g Whanganui eg. Taranaki Maunga. This can provide protective mechanisms against development
• Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Tāonga Act 2014, RMA and Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 are under review and do not contain provisions for the protection of Māori cultural values, sites and environment
• These did not effectively serve developers or Māori, thus changes are necessary
• Balance between identity and economic opportunity for Māori, with increasing investment in horticulture and mahinga kai
• Māori are increasingly being recognised as Kaitiaki and sustainable partners which should be involved in co-management (e.g with DOC)
• Previous legislation has limited this, however new proposals could prove beneficial particularly the adoption of legal personhood status
• Colonial constructs


  Meaning not provided
• PNG


  • Port Moresby is the capital
  • Hot temperate at water level, however cool in the higher regions
  • High linguistic diversity and biodiversity (ranked highest in the world)
  • Highest population density in our region compared to NZ which has fairly low density
  • Longest human population of any Pacific Island (40,000 + years)
  • The home of bananas
• PNG is considered a secondary centre for original food production after the fertile crescent in the Middle East. Origins of agriculture going back at least 70000 years.
• Highland valleys, intensive agricultural zones


  • Meaning not provided
• Nemangkawa


  Significant mountain, situates the Grasberg Mine, largest open cut gold mine
• PNG is one of the wettest places on earth, influenced by climatic processes such as el nino and la nino
• Warm sea surface temperatures

  Causes a lot of moisture in the air, therefore rainfall
• South Pacific conversion zone


  When weak results in droughts and strong, floods
• There are key comparisons which can be made between Pacific Islands such as PNG and Aotearoa.

  
• Kauhau


  Māori and Pasifika view
• Rapa Nui/Easter Island


  Island caught up in the sustainability narrative of ecological collapse vs sustainment of biodiversity
• Obsession of WS to put these islands in the scenarios of success and collapse

  It is more nuanced than this
• Suggestions that for the large statues to be moved, trees were necessary for their transport (through rolling) thus they were all cut down by indigenous people
• One argument went against the main narrative at the time, exemplifying through EI that there was no balance between indigenous people and the environment


  There is more complexity to this and resource management techniques
• Today the tourism on the Island is fuelled by these narratives
• Tikopia


  Small island in central Soloman Islands, significant slavery occurred, Rapa Nui people were placed in phosphate mines in peru
• Tikopia


  • Narrative that pigs were replaced by tree crops which were high in nutrients
  • Lots of rich artifacts and old traditions
  • Through the funeral cycle, respect for ancestors
  • Territoriality and exclusion of neighbours
  • Fishery management and prevention of overharvesting
  • Very resilient society, having to survive the most destructive cyclones in the pacific
• Island transects


  • Forest diversity increases with island size, however, decreases with remoteness
  • There was a substantial shift in ocean technology for people to reach the remote islands (reliance on maritime technology)
  • Less cultural and language diversity and less impact from mosquito diseases
  • Reduced geological complexity
  • Higher rainfall in West vs lower in East- less frequent cyclones
  • Associated variability in sea temp and levels which drives processes of precipitation
  • Deep, historic relationships between pacific islands in Oceania
• Environment formations


  • Most island formations are from volcanic sources, eruptions are still frequent however mostly underwater
  • Atolls, based on plumes of lava from volcanic eruptions
  • Islands are subsiding at different rates, compounding effect which is influencing island societies
• Ecosystem diversity


  • Tree kangaroos, used to be megafauna, in the East no mammals, thus seabirds are significant
  • Diverse groups of invertebrates were key, and flourished due to lack of competition
• Important in understanding these long term-local traditions and adaptations to changes in the climate. Also key to recognise and understand some of the grand narratives established by WS, ideas of 'failure' and 'success' of maintaining biodiversity
• Impacts of climate change have varied from West to East, and the history of islands have been influenced by complex factors such as volcanic activity and malaria