LAND ALONE ENDURES

Forest and Bird, Volume 19, Issue 2, 1 May 1988, Page 2

LAND ALONE

ENDURES

S andra Lee has been closely involved in conservation and Forest and Bird for nine years. She and her husband Michael live on Waiheke Island with their children on a small rural block surrounded by the bush and native birds they hold so dear. Sandra is also Deputy Chairperson of the Waiheke County Council, a local authority which she is keen to see make a strong commitment to conservation. She has been on the County Council for five years and sees it as having a vital role to play in preserving the distinctive natural and cultural features of Waiheke that make it loved by residents and visitors alike. Sandra was elected to the Forest and Bird National Executive in 1987. She has since played a central role in guiding the Society to appreciate the role of local authorities. More importantly she has helped us to better appreciate the Maori dimension in conservation and protection of our natural and cultural heritage. Forest and Bird: Sandra, your upbringing has strongly influenced your attitude to the land. What is your whakapapa and do you take a great interest in Maoritanga? Lee: | am descended from the Ngai Tahu, Ngati Kahununu and Ngati Toa tribes. My great, great, great, great grandfather Tuhuru was Paramount Chief of the Poutini Ngai Tahu of the West Coast (South Island). I was fortunate as a child because in the house in which I grew up lived my great grandfather, Tame Whakamaua Pihawai, who was born in Tuahiwi Pa in 1874. This wise old kaumatua had a significant influence on my early childhood. So of course my Maoritanga and ancestral lands have always been of absolute importance to me. Forest and Bird: Sandra, Forest and Bird has always had a close interest in the West Coast. How do you feel about the West Coast and its lakes, rivers, native forests, mountains and seacoast? Lee: Te Wahi Pounamu (West Coast) is a very tapu, powerful place. The magnitude of our mountains, strength of our rivers and beauty of our forests, so worthy of preservation, serve to remind us of our true scale in the scheme of things. I will always fight to retain our ancestral lands there because they have been bequeathed to us by the tupuna. The responsibility that the land brings takes me home several times a year and probably when I'm older I will return there.

Forest and Bird: Has European settlement of Westland been sensitive to those values? Lee: | think not. It is tragic that little of the huge fortunes made from ripping off of the natural resources, such as our forests, gold and coal, has been reinvested back into the Coast in environmentally sensitive, less destructive alternatives. While our sacred pounamu is being plundered on the Arahura, just a few miles north at Mawhera (Greymouth) my people as owners of the city continue to be prevented from charging market rentals for their land by legislation. Perpetual lease provisions ensure to this day that we cannot ever have use of our land for ourselves. I cannot recall the Pakeha Coasters mobilising to support my people over these sorts of injustices. The saying ‘‘Coasters are an endangered species’’ is popular with some Pakeha down there — they most certainly will be as long as they refuse to accept the need to diversify economically away from continual natural resource exploitation. After all, after 1000 years of occupation my people had to change, which is why so many of us have had to move to other areas for employment and education. Forest and Bird: Do you feel Maori people and the conservation movement share common interests? Lee: Yes, Maori people have always been conservationists and many of our National Parks have been given by my people. I think many Maori are heartened by the growing conservation movement in Aotearoa. It signals New Zealanders are now able to accept the unique natural beauty and essence of this land (or what remains of it) without the need to continue to transform it into another England. Forest and Bird: Can you give any examples where we have helped each other? Lee: In the years I have been involved in Forest and Bird, and most recently the executive, it has been good to see the gradual development of a partnership between the conservation movement and the Maori people. I think a few examples best illustrate this:-

On Waiheke Forest and Bird helped the campaign and petition by the tangata whenua to retain communal control and reserve protection for the Maori Affairs block and its important bush remnants. This area adjoined Forest and Bird's Te Matuku reserve. Forest and Bird has worked with the Te Hapua people of the far north in their efforts to protect rare flax snails, bush and important urupa (burial sites). In the coastal conservation field it has been excellent to see Forest and Bird working alongside Maori communities to restore the Maketu estuary, to oppose harbour reclamation for marinas, to control sewage dumping and protect traditional kai moana areas. Probably the issue above all else where we all worked closely together was in opposing the alienation of natural and culturally important public lands to the new State Corporations.

Forest and Bird: Do you see issues looming where we will need to work more closely together — particularly the younger people who want to develop a closer relationship with the land rather than exploiting it?

a Maori perspective on Conservation

Lee: I am extremely confident that an even closer working relationship will evolve between us. Conservationists should be prepared to support Maori issues such as the fight against pounamu pillaging in the south and the disturbance and abuse of urupa (burial grounds) to extract ironsands in the north. Forest and Bird: The November 1987 issue of Nga Kaitiaki, the Conservation Department newsletter, has an article on the Maori conservation ethic and interviews with Tipene O'Regan, Pat Park and Te Aue Davis. It presents a strong case for allowing Maori people controlled harvest of natural resources from DoC lands. It argues that there is likely to be conflict between the department’s preservation goals and Maori techniques of sustained management. Do you also believe that a preservation ethic (as opposed to a conservation or harvest ethic) is alien to the traditional and contemporary Maori relationship with nature? Lee: My people have always recognised the wisdom of democratic social control of precious resources for the common good as well as for nature’s own sake. The tragic effect of the ecological holocaust on the children of Tane reveals that 10 percent of the

planet's total endangered species of birdlife may be found in Aotearoa, this in spite of the promises contained in the Treaty. So of course I support the preservation ethic for our forests and birds. The issue today is simply one of preservation or destruction — and therefore extinction. In this era of the Maori renaissance I am positive that our culture will thrive and is not dependent on the consumption of threatened species to achieve this. Forest and Bird: Influenced by the perspective of Mr O'Regan and others, the Conservation Department is now examining amending our protected area and species legislation to make it easier for traditional

harvest from reserves and is also initiating research into sustained harvest techniques. Do you think such amendments could set dangerous precedents? Could they be exploited by unscrupulous entrepreneurs? Lee: | would be happier if DoC discussed these sorts of issues more in the tribal areas in the traditional tribal way. Why is it that the view of one or a few Maoris is often assumed to be the view of us all? Most Maori people do not make the same assumption with Pakeha. Greedy people always take advantage of the weakness of legislation to make a fast dollar. To assume that conservation legislation will be any more respected than, say, the Town and Country Planning Act is, I suspect, naive. I would be disappointed to see the legislation made any more vulnerable than it is already is. | came down and argued this case in March 1987 before the Select Committee considering the Conservation Bill. Forest and Bird: In the same Nga Kaitiaki article, Tipene O’Regan discusses kukupa (kereru, native pigeon) harvest. He argues that even though many of the rituals and customs concerning hunting are no longer practised, old mechanisms can be revised. Do you see it necessary or appropriate to revive pre-European activities like kereru harvest in view of their severely reduced habitat and numbers, improved hunting techniques and the birds’ inability to breed quickly? Lee: | have hand-reared several of these chubby charmers. In each case they were orphaned by humans tampering with kukupa’s immediate environment. I’m aware of one case where an elder "‘shot out’"’ almost completely an area once plentiful with these birds. Today, rather than seeing kukupa as a ‘‘food resource’"’, we must see them as sustaining us in a more important way, as Kaitiaki of the Kakahu of Papa (guardians of the cloak of the Earth mother) proclaiming Aotearoa — ours — unique. Forest and Bird: Many Pakeha feel some discomfort about the land claims before the Waitangi Tribunal — often unaware of the injustices by which the land was acquired from its rightful owners. Maori concern about land alienation has been heightened by the large scale sale of land to effectively private state corporations. This has precipitated many of the claims. Are there also concerns that Maori land is still being alienated?

Lee: Perhaps those who do feel discomfort should consider the possible consequences of not allowing these grievances to be finally aired. Maori concern regarding land alienation to private state corporations is obvious and justified. There are still cases where our existing reservations can and are still being alienated even by our own people. Forest and Bird: What priorities do you see for Forest and Bird to develop closer liaison and cooperation with the Maori people? Lee: | have heard some of my elders say Pakeha are all conservationists when it comes to Maori land. I think there has been a feeling that there was an attitude of ‘what's yours is mine and mine's my own". The conservation movement and Forest and Bird must be fair and consistent with, and considerate of, Maori perspectives when dealing with conservation matters. Our first priority must be the development of better communication and trust between us, and the realisation that many of our aspirations in terms of conservation values are the same. A big challenge facing me — and | think all of us in Forest and Bird, is to strengthen that partnership. ¥