He Whenua Whakatipu has been established to assist Ngai Tahu landholders within Te Waipounamu ( South Island ) to generate sustainable livelihoods from the land and generate positive environmental and social outcomes. The project is lead by John Reid and has a strong development focus and adopts participatory action research processes for achieving its goals. A comprehensive environmental, social and economic monitoring approach is being provided to ensure that developments stay on track, and that research participants are achieving their goals.
Over the past year He Whenua Whakatipu has gained momentum. The structure and personnel of the project team is now cemented, while ideal process for working with research participants is coming into place. The overall He Whenua Whakatipu project team is divided two foci. The first is centred on development, the second on monitoring and evaluation. The goal of the development team strongly follows an action research premise of working with participants to identify problems and assisting in overcoming the problems identified. The goal of the monitoring team is to also adopt a participatory approach, however their focus is to determine what should be monitored and how, across economic, social and ecological indices.
The development team consists of Tim Jenkins and Don Pearson and overseen by John Reid. Each team member provides a different function. They concentrate on looking at the participating whanau’s relationship to the whenua on which they live through uncovering whakapapa, and cosmological relationships to place. Further, they look at uncovering the moemoea, or the visions that the whanau has for themselves and generations to come on the whenua. John looks at establishing the concrete goals and objectives, or ‘stepping stones’ that will assist the whanau in achieving their visions. Tim provides technical expertise and advice regarding farm production, whilst Don provides expertise on farm business planning. Both Tim and Don’s input provides feedback into the goals and objectives established by John with the whanau.
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The monitoring team is facilitated and coordinated by Esther Water. The team consists of Henrik Moller, Caroline Saunders, Martin Emanuelsson and Carmen McLeod. The monitoring is to begin soon, as the whanau begin to implement the goals established with the development team. Henrik will be working with the whanau in a participatory manner to determine what is to be monitored ecologically on farm. Likewise, Caroline and Martin will work with the whanau to determine appropriate economic approaches, whilst Carmen will be establishing what requires monitoring from a sociological perspective. Both the monitoring team and development team will however work together as new information arises from the monitoring which will affect the manner in which land will be managed.
The He Whenua Whakatipu Team
Where is He Whenua Whakatipu with its research participants?
Currently there are four case studies involved with He Whenua Whakatipu. It is expected that two more case studies will come on board by July 2005 making an initial cluster of six. It is hoped to establish a second cluster of six in the following year. The development team is nearing completion of three development plans with whanau participants, and about half way through completing a fourth.
It has become clear that in order to sustain whanau in their papakainga (or homelands) and their status as ahika (keepers of the home fires), it is necessary to increase opportunity and life options. All of the farms are economically marginal and need to look at development alternatives. Alternatives have been initially explored with whanau by looking at natural resources present in a particular location and ways of developing them, mostly as high value agricultural products for niche markets. Cottage industry level value-added processing is also being explored. It has been determined that developing local economy will be crucial to whanau maintaining sustainable livelihoods in their papakainga. Off-farm income in terms of tourism has also been deemed as important. Permaculture style development, based on subsistence is also being explored in one case-study as a means to sustain whanau in their papakainga.
Two of the four case-studies are in the implementation phase of their plans and are very excited about putting these into action. On-going support from the development team will keep the development ‘on the rails,’ whilst feedback from the monitoring team will provide on-going information needed to determine whether the economic, social and ecological resilience of the whanau and their whenua (land) is improving. It is expected that over the next five years the action research within He Whenua Whakatipu will provide important information regarding how rural Maori can be facilitated into sustainable livelihoods on their whenua, and further, how this can continue into the future, providing a foundation for the ahika (home fire keepers) and therefore cultural resilience within papakainga.
Contact John Reid (john.reid@ngaitahu.iwi.nz)
Ngāi Tahu Homepage
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