As a usual part of my class, I would take them on fieldtrips to local whenua (land/s) to discuss Maori and Indigenous principles regarding land, waters and skies.
However, as we still have high daily case numbers (4,000 - 5,000+) of COVID in our communities, the tertiary institution that I work for has encouraged us as kaiako (tutors/teachers) to take a cautious approach.
Therefore, instead of my class going out on the fieldtrip, I took my phone/camera and Zoomed them in after I drove to a couple of places on the weekend for my class to still experience these important spaces.
One of the places was Ihumātao, where there was a pre-COVID a stand off between local manawhenua (indigenous Maori people with generation pre-colonial territory rights) and their supporters weighing in and occupied land that had been sold by a European landowner to a big property development company.
The development company wanted to cash in with the looming building crisis of a house shortages in Auckland and they wanted to build 480 houses right next to the Otuataua stonefields which is a NZ protected heritage site that still has archaeological sites of interests of the early occupation of that area in the 1200s.
People came to support the kaupapa (issue or topic) from all over New Zealand, both locally and nationally and many were non-Maori. Some even came from overseas indigenous nations i.e. Hawaii and First nations peoples from Canada and USA. There was such a ground swell of people support that the government really had no choice but to address the issue of such a delicate and complex nature.
The big problem was that the lands were formerly confiscated by the then NZ government of the 1860s and then redistributed and sold to European landowners who had come from England to find new lands. In fact, Maori now only own 5% of NZ lands than what they had formerly owned back in the early 1800s.
The problem was further complicated by some Maori manawhenua representatives of the area signing a deal that was not accepted by those living on the area thus dividing many with strong opinions on both sides. I am so glad that now there has been a concerted effort to reach a resolution.
Since that time, with the COVID environment intervening in all national states of affairs, it was announced last year, in December, that a settlement had been reached with the government buying the said land for around $30 million and that there was now a consortium (of sorts) of stakeholders, including manawhenua, to discuss the use of the land.
It was also expressed that the Maori King, King Tuheitea and his supporters and the Maori caucus (in parliament) were pivotal in the negotiations that took place and now there is an interesting resolution to the peaceful protest (or rights to protection) that would otherwise have been developed for housing with local manawhenua looking on...
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