Māori and conservation

The Māori people had a changing conservation ethic from the time of their discovery and settlement of New Zealand until the present day.

Contents

Māori settlement

The Māori were the first humans to settle in New Zealand and brought the kurī and the kiore, a Polynesian dog and rat. The kiore, along with mammals introduced later by Europeans, would cause a major significant adverse impact on indigenous species. One of the greatest negative ecological impacts of the early Māori people was the wholesale burning of forests, for the purpose of hunting and killing birds. Greater than the bird population decimations was the deforestation of vast tracts of land; approximately half of the native forests of New Zealand were lost within several hundreds of years following initial Māori settlement from the combination of wood harvesting and forest burning.[1]

Rāhui is a form of protection of natural resources that Maori implemented as a conservation measure as well as other reasons.

European colonisation

Part of what is now Tongariro National Park was gifted to The Crown by the Maori chief Te Heuheu Tukino IV to ensure its protection.

Contemporary viewpoints

A Cultural Health Index for waterways has been developed that links Western science and the cultural knowledge from Māori about stream health.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hogan, C. Michael (2009). N. Stromberg. ed. Yellow-eyed Penguin: Megadyptes antipodes. GlobalTwitcher.com. http://globaltwitcher.auderis.se/artspec_information.asp?thingid=222 
  2. ^ Tipa, Gail; Laurel Teirney (June 2003). A Cultural Health Index for Stream and Waterways. ME475. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment. ISBN 0-478-24092-9. 

Further reading

External links