Manuka
Manuka plantation at wahi tapu blessing springs, Taipōrutu, Māhia, NZ
Awa
Pakuratahi awa, Kaitoke, Remutaka, NZ
Māra
Papawhakaritorito, Hua Parakore Family Food Farm, Kaitoke, Remutaka
Hapi Products – Ngā Hua
Products at Hapī Clean Kai Co-Op, Napier, NZ
Taipōrutu site visit
(Left to right) Yvonne Taura, Landowner Mere Whaanga, Jo Smith, Jessica Hutchings, Pahauwera Kaumatua Richard Allen at Taipōrutu, Māhia, NZ
Storying Kaitiakitanga –
A Kaupapa Māori Land and Water Food Story
Storying Kaitiakitanga is a 15 month kaupapa Māori project funded from the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, which fosters fresh thinking about economic productivity and environmental wellbeing. Storying Kaitiakitanga focuses on one specific outcome of agricultural and horticultural practices – the production and consumption of food. We seek to tell a Māori Land and Water Food Story centred on the kaupapa of kaitiakitanga. Kaitiakitanga values of guardianship and responsibility can, and do, make a crucial contribution to New Zealand’s agriculture and food sectors. Our project shines light on Māori-led food practices, food communities, businesses and enterprises that balance economic, environmental and cultural aims and objectives. The Māori agricultural and food production sector is a crucial site for developing solutions that are productive economically, while also ensuring that generations to come can enjoy and benefit culturally and ecologically from the resources underpinning agriculture – our lands and waters. Our project develops a Kaupapa Māori Land and Water Food Story “all the way down” to the fundamental connection between tangata, whenua and awa, and the kaitiakitanga obligations underpinning these relations.
Our interviews with diverse Māori food producers, retailers, and enterprises, will help further understandings of the critical and fundamental dimensions kaitiakitanga – the care and guardianship of lands and waters in all their interconnected realities. At a time when Aotearoa/New Zealand faces challenges as a primary producer within a highly competitive global climate, we argue that communicating and normalising kaitiakitanga values and practices more broadly can enhance and extend existing productivity paradigms, and help identify new niche markets for Aotearoa/New Zealand food more generally, in ways that serve economic, environment and cultural objectives.
Our Kaupapa Māori Project Team:
Project Co-Leaders: Associate Professor Jo Smith, Dr Jessica Hutchings. Kairangahau: Yvonne Taura; Storyteller Design Consultant; Desna Whaanga Schollum; Rōpū Tikanga Rangahau Members: Garth Harmsworth and Dr Shaun Awatere. For further details contact: Jessica Hutchings – kiaora@jessicahutchings.org
DR JESSICA HUTCHINGS
Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa, Gujarati
YVONNE TAURA
Ngāiterangi, Ngāti Ranginui,
Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Uenuku,
Ngāti Hauā
DR JO SMITH
Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu
GARTH HARMSWORTH
Ngāti Tūwharetoa
DESNA WHAANGA-SCHOLLUM
Rongomaiwahine, Pahauwera, Kahungunu
DR SHAUN AWATERE
Ngāti Porou
Kaupapa Māori Land and Water Food Stories
See below for individual kaupapa Māori land and water food stories that we have developed in the form of research summaries. We see these research summaries as Kaitiaki Tools that Māori agrifood producers might use to shine light on their practices. A forthcoming journal article will provide a synthesis of the research summaries and futher explore the shared kaupapa found in these stories. These stories share the moemoeā of participants who grow, produce or sell food as expressions of kaitiakitanga within their land and waterscapes. Some of the stories tell of how kōura grown on whānau lands can become an ahikaa catalyst; māra kai initiatives could be the pathway to greater tino rangatiratanga; building a clean kai co-op through whanaungatanga principles could mean inspiring the next generation to do things differently.
Awanui Huka Pak
Read about the largest Māori kiwifruit entity operating in Aotearoa. Featuring the kōrero of Te Awanui Huka Pak chairperson, Ratahi Cross, we learn about the cultivation areas around Mount Maunganui, the importance of observing, listening to, and engaging with the lands you hold mana over and how tikanga makes kaitiakitanga.
Cathy Taite-Jamieson and BioFarm products
Her organic yoghurt is available in most supermarkets in Aotearoa but she only milks around 100 cows. Read more here about the Māori and biodynamic values that inform Cathy Taite-Jamieson’s sustainable dairy farming practices in the Manawatū.
Hapī Clean Kai Co-Op
More than just another cafe in Napier, Hapī Clean Kai Co-op offers nutritional and delicious food and drinks that celebrate the wellbeing dimensions of kai. With a committment to sourcing the best organic and ethcially-grown produce possible, Gretta Carney and her team offer food that has hauora benefits. Read on for more about Hapī’s values and practices.
John Reid
Senior Research Fellow Dr John Reid has worked for many years in the area of Māori land development, historical trauma and sustainable iwi development. Taking care of the relationships between lands, waters and peoples is a primary focus for John. Learn more about his work with Ngāi Tahu and his hope for a rise in kaitiakitanga practices that move beyond guardianship to acknowledge the mutually binding nature of landscapes, waterways and peoples.
Koukourārata
Food has always been cultivated at the Koukourārata Gardens on Banks Peninsula. Today, people like Manaia Cunningham are reviving the cultivation of Māori potatoes and are developing hapū gardens as a pathway to greater kai sovereignty and freedom from the idea that a high-paying salary is what one needs to have a good life.
Onenui Station
Read about a sheep and beef station on an East Coast Peninsula who express kaitiakitanga by diversifying their land-use practices and by entering into collaborations that will bring long term benefits to their people.
Taipōrutu
Kōura is an endangered freshwater species that is experiencing an increased national profile. Te Māhia Peninsula landholder Mere Whaanga, with the help of fellow resident Richard Allen, are developing kōura ponds on Mere’s whānau lands, Taipōrutu. Read on to find out more about Mere’s vision for her whenua and her whānau and the role kōura will play.
Whenua Honey
Learn how an enterprising whānau are contributing to the honey industry through whanaungatanga values. Laney and Eugene Hunia involve their children in all aspects of their beekeeping industry and they also help foster relationships between East Cape Māori landowners and existing beekeepers keen to access the mānuka grown on whānau land blocks.
Poutama Trust
Read about the role of a Māori business development service provider and how Māori values such as manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga have a role to play in supporting innovation in the Māori food and beverage sectors. Poutama CEO Richard Jones talks about the networking and collaboration opportunities they provide. Collaborations between Māori as well as with non-Māori entities helps build scale, expand market opportunities and develop operation practices that hold kaupapa at their heart.
Caleb Royal
Learn more about how a strip of land near the Kāpiti Express motorway is being run sustainably by local Māori who have reclaimed this land to help feed their marae and to foster the health of wetlands and tuna. Read on for more about how Caleb Royal acts as a kaitiaki for his people and their whenua on the Kāpiti Coast.
Listen to Cathy Taite-Jamieson from Biofarm talk with Kathryn Ryan from Nine to Noon about her kaitiakitanga within her production practices and her story of coming to the whenua with her whānau.