Indigenous view needed for sustainable cities

Atereano Mateariki Amanda Yates | Indigenous view needed for sustainable cities

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A Māori planner says tāngata whenua knowledge is integral to creating more resilient communities.

Amanda Yates, an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology’s school of architecture, is the narrator for a short film in on environmental issues in city planning showing at this month’s Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival.

She says tāngata whenua here and abroad want more ecologically designed cities

“We really have to take account of the nature of the ecological flows and the ecological resources that are inherent to the site of the city that we’re in. That means sort of high level systemic things like not building in things that are fundamentally floodplains and it requires a sort of oversight, but it also requires real attention to the ecological realities of the city that you’re in,” she says.

Ms Yates says moves to zero or low-carbon locally-generated energy and incorporating natural water systems like wetlands and rivers into water infrastructure rather than piping them underground will raise the ecological and societal wellbeing of cities.

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