New Zealand

“Ahakoa kei whea, Ahakoa āwhea, Ahakoa pēwhea, Kōrero Māori!”-- Te Māngai Pāho Māori Broadcasting Funding Agency
(“Māori language - everyday, everyway, everywhere”)

When an agreement recently signed in Aotearoa (New Zealand) proposed the acknowledgement of the Whanganui River as a legal person, many saw it as an innovative resource management solution.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 TapuHe Paua, He Korowai,

The experiences of the Kakai Tonga Tu’a (Tongan people who have migrated to Aotearoa—New Zealand–from the Kingdom of Tonga) can be interpreted alongside the patterns of the tapestry of the lives of Tangata Whenua (“First People of the land”) in Aotearoa and indigenous colonized peoples elsewhere in the world. Our heritage can be traced to the islands of Niua Fo’ou, Niua Toputapu, Vava’u, Ha’apai, Tongatapu, and ‘Eua, which are collectively called the Tonga Islands. The diversity among Kakai Tonga Tu’a is acknowledged and, as a Kakai Tonga Tu’a teacher, I am one of many voices.

Many of those involved with the mining industry, or with mining related issues will by now be aware of the Mining Minerals and Sustainable Development Project (MMSD) being managed by the International Institute for Environment and Devel

Maori origins are traced back to the beginnings of creation -- Te Kore (total darkness). There was no life, only potential. Papatuanuku (the Earth Mother) and Ranginui (the Sky Father) were clasped together, stifling all growth.

Michael Jackson

Duke University Press, 2000

ISBN 0-8223-2538-1 (Paperback)

Over the past two decades or so, the Western intellectual property rights (IPR) legal system has increasingly found itself on a collision course with the cultural and intellectual heritage rights system of indigenous and traditional peo