Nga kaitiaki

Tu Tangata, Issue 20, 1 October 1984, Page 23

Nga kaitiaki

Mr Charlton Clark

He iwi

The Commission for the Environment kaitiaki of Aotearoa’s water, land, air and forests spent a weekend at Huntly’s Waahi Marae in August to learn about maori environmental values.

And according to assistant commissioner Helen Hughes, it proved a worthwhile experience, not only in learning about maori perspectives of the environment, but as an experience of maori hospitality and the kawa of the marae.

Commission staff arrived with their husbands, wives and children for the live-in weekend of discussions with Tainui elders and spokespeople.

“It was a tremendous experience for the commission group," Mrs Hughes said. “Many of us had not been on a marae before, so from that point of view it was a rewarding experience."

And commission staff went away with a greater understanding and appreciation of maori environmental values.

“I came away with the feeling that certainly in some directions we can help mediate between two clearly differing viewpoints, the pakeha viewpoint and the maori viewpoint," Mrs Hughes said.

“We were able to understand a little better how we may attempt to help, but on the other hand we perceived that some of the things they (the maori people) wanted us to achieve were virtually impossible.”

She said the aim of the weekend was not to come up with solutions to specific environmental problems of concern to maori people, but to explore ways of looking for solutions.

Mrs Hughes said not only did the commission understand better the maori perspective, “but they understood us a little bit better, and that was a breakthrough in that we have our frustrations too”.

She said the commission found “there was room to work together, and then it became a matter of finding the right processes to alleviate what to some of their people is great distress, and we understand that".

Tainui spokesman John Te Maru said he believed the commission went away “feeling satisfied”.

“There were some strong things said," Mr Te Maru said, “but it just made the commission more aware of the feelings of the local people."

He said maori concerns for the environment were “basically the same as the pakeha's”.

“But there is this other side of it which comes into the spiritual and tapu side of it, which I think a lot of pakeha people have trouble understanding," Mr Te Maru said.

He said local environmental issues which were worrying the Tainui people were the expansion of the Weaver’s Crossing opencast coal mine at Huntly, the proposed new thermal power station in the northern Waikato, and the proposed big opencast coal mine at Ohinewai.

The marae discussions were followed by a seminar at the University of Waikato organised by the commission and the university's Maori Research Centre, for central and local government people.

About 50 people attended, many coming from government department head offices in Wellington, to learn about maori environmental values, especially in relation to water.

The participants heard Nganeko Minhinnick, the managing director of the Pukekohe-based Huakina Development Trust, make an impassioned plea for developers, town planners and industrial leaders to give more weight to maori values.

Mrs Minhinnick said maori peole for too long had suffered from powerful pakehas’ “they're only maoris" attitude, which meant maori people were the last to be consulted, if they were consulted at all, when new projects were being planned.

Mrs Minhinnick has been in the forefront of the Tainui people’s fight to prevent the desecration of the tapu and kaimoana of the Manukau Harbour and the Waikato River by developments such as the New Zealand steel mill at Glenbrook.

And in an interview at the seminar, Maori Research Centre director Bob Mahuta said the maori people were aware that the actions of some maori groups provided an opportunity for the pakeha to point an accusing finger at them on environmental issues.

He referred in particular to the refusal by the Waitutu Incorporation of Southland to consider a land swap or some similar deal to save the maoriowned part of the Waitutu forests from logging by Feltex, and the leasing by Tai Rawhiti land-owners of huge tracts of native forest to the Caxton toilet paper manufacturers to be destroyed to make way for pine trees, with the native timber being burned off.

Mr Mahuta said the maori people were aware that these actions could prompt the pakeha to cry “hypocrites” when other maori groups asked for greater sensitivity to maori environmental values.

He said it was essential that such concerns be aired, and that such groups be made aware that they would be held to account for their actions by other maori people.

Environment Commissioner Ken Piddington called for a social contract to be drawn up between maori and pakeha to

ensure that the values of both groups were given equal weight. He referred to the present lack of consideration for maori values in laws like the Town and Country Planning Act and the Water and Soil Conservation Act. He said that with such a social contract between the two cultures, environmental and other issues could be decided without one of them feeling it lost out all the time.

But he said the backlog of maori grievances from the past should be dealt with first, and specifically mentioned land claims.

It was no good the pakeha asking more from the maori while the maori had a mistrust of the pakeha which was deeply rooted in the two culture’s dealings with each other over the past 140 years. Mr Piddington offered as an example to New Zealand a Canadian law which made it compulsory for all other laws and official decisions to give equal weight to all of Canada’s cultural groups, primarily English, French and Red Indian.

A social worker who's pushing for more use of the community in looking after state wards, has recently returned from three international conferences of social workers in Montreal.

John Antonio has returned to Wesleydale Boys Home in Mt Roskill, Auckland with fresh ideas on social welfare problems that are of international concern.

More than 1,000 delegates from around the world attended the conferences which looked at responses to contemporary problems, survival and development, choices and responsibilities, challenges and social welfare in a world of crises. While overseas Mr Antonio visited ethnic communities in Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, London, Montreal, Sydney and Brisbane. John is Fijian born from Rotuma. His mothers side is Ngapuhi and Aupouri, Ngati Pou, Ngati Uru and Ngati Kuta hapu of Taitokerau.