From Aotearoa to Mt Kenya: Māori knowledge travels the world

They make ants very large and aggressive in Kenya.

Or so Associate Professor Krushil Watene discovered on a recent visit to Meru, an agricultural area inhabited by the Ameeru people, that sits on the northeastern slopes of Mt Kenya, about 180 km northeast of Nairobi.

A philosopher at the University of Auckland, Watene (Ngāti Manu, Te Hikutu, Ngāti Whātua Orakei, Tonga) was attending a global gathering of Indigenous communities convened by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Established in 2012, IPBES is an independent intergovernmental body with more than 140 member countries, including New Zealand, which focuses on connecting scientific research on biodiversity with government policy.

Its first massive Global Assessment Report (2019) established a baseline of global ecological decline, with the second currently in draft and out for peer review; which prompted the gathering in Kenya.

But the news is not all bad, says Watene, and in fact after attending the event, co-hosted by the Institute for Culture and Ecology in Kenya, she believes there’s plenty of cause for optimism.

“Indigenous and local practitioners, scholars and activists from around the world met to talk about the importance of culture for understanding and enabling biodiversity, and for shaping the next global assessment.”

As with all member governments, New Zealand must sign off on the latest report and Watene was there alongside two esteemed Māori colleagues: Dr Nick Roskruge (Te Atiawa), co-chair of the IPBES Indigenous and local knowledge taskforce, and Indigenous knowledge expert Brenda Tahi, CEO of Manawa Honey NZ and a lead author of the latest assessment report.

“New Zealand has been well-represented at IPBES over the years by experts like Aroha Mead. In Meru, we had a mini-Pacific cohort, with representation from Tahiti as well,” says Watene.

The event ( Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) Dialogue Workshop) focused on how Indigenous communities are already responding to environmental change, often combining local knowledge with new tools, she says.

“A lot of our discussions focus on how Indigenous and local communities, in New Zealand and elsewhere, are motivating or mobilising action to protect nature; collaborating in new ways to protect community, language and biodiversity in the face of challenges.”

One answer has been to blend traditional relationships with the environment with new technologies and leadership development, she says, “which is contributing to how we understand diverse knowledge systems, grow leadership in our young people and equipping us to shape the future.”

Watene drew on her work with her own hapū, Ngāti Manu, based in Te Tai Tokerau, and a Marsden project that traces their history and supports their aspirations for the future.

“Each participant shared their aspirations for the future, imagining how our lives could be better lived with each other and nature.”

Some conversations were hard to have, she says, and involved confronting shared histories.

“We all need to be honest about how we got here, what was taken from Indigenous communities, and what must now be restored.”

Watene says the meeting in Meru brought together very different communities, from nomadic Maasai herders and Ameeru agriculturalists to coastal fishing communities.

“Just on Mount Kenya, you have a whole range of groups living radically different lifestyles,” she says, “and who have very different concepts, practices, languages and governance structures.”

One contribution that particularly struck her came from a coastal community organisation in Kerala.

“Many communities are land-based in their orientation,” she says, “but many others are ocean or water-based. They read the sea and follow the migration patterns of fish. In our changing climate, what happens when those fish are gone or migrate to new places? What does that mean for our cultural practices, our languages, our relationships?”

This challenges how many disciplines, and governments, think about nature, says Watene, whose work as a philosopher focuses on how we understand and measure wellbeing and justice in direct relationship to nature.

“Indigenous philosophies take our relationships with each other and nature as an important starting point for theorising,” she says. “These relationships aren’t an afterthought, it’s where we begin and one of the primary places we look to for our concepts and ideas.”

She says people are used to Indigenous groups being around the edges and not being listened to.

“But IPBES dialogues have been doing their best to ensure that Indigenous and local communities are being heard.”

The trip included a visit to the Giitune Sacred Forest, to walk the land, see and hear local plant and animal life and engage with local governance systems, and dancing (led by community members) while navigating paths teeming with “very aggressive ants that bite!”

And despite the scale of biodiversity loss and climate disruption, Watene says there are many reasons for hope.

“There is lots of work to be done to mend our relationships with each other and the natural environment. Even so, I try to remind myself of all the great work that’s happening in our communities, Indigenous and otherwise.

“There are so many people working towards just futures for people and the planet. We need to do much more to support this work, and more of us need to start contributing to it ourselves.”