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New Zealand

Working Towards Maori Equality

New Zealand (Aotearoa is the Maori name) proudly displays evidence of its Maori culture, whether it be the dozens of replicas of Maori crafts, carvings, and paintings at the airport, the Maori flag flying alongside the Aotearoa flag, or non-Maori performing the haka, the traditional dance of the Maori peoples.  What’s harder to see is the level of discrimination that the Maori of Aotearoa continue to face despite the country’s pride in its Indigenous population.

Once and Future Spud

According to the Maori origin story, the tribe originated on an island called Hawaiiki and traveled to New Zealand in large canoes, bringing with them stone tools and a collection of plants that included coconuts, bananas, breadfruit, and kumara—what Europeans would call sweet potato. Of these crops, only the kumara could adapt to New Zealand’s cooler climate.

Intolerable Intolerance

A new wave of racism against indigenous peoples is emanating from figures so hallowed they are intimidating to confront. But confront them we must; and recognize their words and deeds for what they are. The mistakes of the past are too egregious. We cannot tolerate their recurrence.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Reports on South Africa, New Zealand

The governments of South Africa and New Zealand must do more, more quickly, to address the inequalities between their indigenous and nonindigenous populations, according to two recently released reports by U.N. Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Although Stavenhagen was “encouraged,” and in the case of South Africa, “tremendously impressed,” by each government's declared commitment to improving the situation of indigenous rights, his reports conclude that the governments of both nations still need to make substantial changes to their current policies.

Speaking Out

The Maori Party formed in 2004 around Tariana Turia, a former Labor Party member and cabinet member, largely in response to the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. At the abbreviated hearings about the bill in November 2004, Turia gave an impassioned speech against the legislation. Excerpts from that speech appear below.

New Zealand Endorses the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Date: 05/10/2010


On 20 April 2010 at the annual meeting of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City, New Zealand's Minster of Maori Affairs, Dr. Pita Sharples, formally delivered a statement on his government's recognition and support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

An Imbalance of Powers: Maori Land Claims and an Unchecked Parliament

Aotearoa/New Zealand is not known for egregious breaches of indigenous peoples’ rights. Nonetheless, New Zealand’s legal system is ineffective at implementing international and domestic laws that protect the rights of Maori. This has been seen most starkly in the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004, which had the effect of extinguishing Maori aboriginal title to the foreshore and seabed areas and was passed despite almost universal Maori opposition.

The problem lies in the structure of the country’s legal system.

Bridging the Gap

During the first United Nations International Decade on the World’s Indigenous People (1995-2004), there were a number of positive developments for the world’s indigenous peoples. Many countries adopted legislation concerning land, resources, culture, language, education, justice, intellectual property rights, and in some instances, legal pluralism, autonomy, and self-governance. In 1989, just before the decade began, the International Labor Organization adopted Convention #169 on indigenous and tribal peoples, and since 1996 the U.N.

500 Years in the Making<br> Centuries of Activism Were Preamble to International Decade’s Successes

The conclusion of the first International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People provides a moment to reflect on the history of the indigenous rights movement, which was spear-headed centuries ago by indigenous peoples and their allies in response to the moral exclusion, extinction, or assimilation policies prevalent during five centuries of conquest, colonization, and state sovereignty.

One of the first individuals to raise his voice in defense of indigenous rights was Bartolome de Las Casas, whose father sailed with Columbus on the Santa Maria.

He Paua, He Korowai, Me Nga Waahi Tapu/A Shellfish, a Woven Cloak, and Sacred Places: Maori and Protected Areas

He Paua, He Korowai,Me Nga Waahi TapuHe Paua, He Korowai,

Internationally recognized conservation protected areas now constitute 12 percent of the Earth’s total land mass and two percent of the oceans, but many, if not most, have been gained through a colonial process contrary to the basic principles of democracy. Many of the world’s protected areas were taken from indigenous peoples during the time of colonization without their consent, often at the cost of their very lives.

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