February 22, 2024
Conversations between Māori and Pacific essential for the survival of culture due to climate change
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has commissioned research among Māori to prepare for what is being seen as the inevitable need for people from the Pacific to relocate to New Zealand due to climate change.
As part of the research, Waikato University Professor of Maori and Indigenous Studies Sandy Morrison has been holding conversations with Maori leaders from Waikato looking at Samoa and Tonga, while Auckland University is covering 7 other Pacific nations.
She says it’s important to have Māori perspectives in planning for the effects and relocation due to climate change and not just reactions to a crisis.
“I don’t think we have a good history of accommodating cultural diversity in New Zealand and that’s why I think that it’s incredibly important that we start to think about these conversations as Māori given our understanding about when Pacific people have to move. How do you build processes of what would be trauma when you have to leave your historical land, your the wairua of your people,” she says
Sandy Morrison says there will be trauma to deal with, not just the economic sustainable development that all communities need to be able to survive and thrive.