Ngā Tangata o te Marama | Jamie Ataria

Some careers are carefully mapped out from the beginning. Jamie Ataria’s is more a lesson of following what interests you, paying attention to the people and places around you, and trusting the signposts when they appear.

In this profile, Jamie talks about the value of listening, the usefulness of being a little bit shy, why language and culture should travel alongside science, and what Indigenous knowledge can offer a world facing increasingly difficult environmental challenges. He also makes a convincing case for humour, financial literacy, a metal-tipped taiaha in the zombie apocalypse, and turning up for dinner while it is still hot.

Enjoy this awesome addition of Ngā Tangata o te Marama and keep an eye out for more profiles coming to you soon.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, where are you from, and how would you describe yourself to someone you’ve never met before?

I am a member of the tribes of the Central North Island namely Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu of the East Coast and Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki of the Rangitīkei district. My name is James Ataria, although everyone calls me Jamie.

I’m a very proud father of two daughters. I’m married to my wife, Ahi, who is from Ngāti Porou up the East Coast. So we are neighbours in terms of our tribal affiliations.

I grew up in the South Island at a place called Kaikōura and what a beautiful place to grow up in – right by the sea, the mountains, the bush. Everything was there, and I have very fond memories of my childhood there, especially spending a lot of time at the seashore.

Often going snorkelling, free diving for seafood. My father was an avid harvester of kai, whether in the rivers, at the seashore, fishing. He was a mahinga kai gatherer extraordinaire and I was lucky enough to be a part of that and help catch eels, and go diving for pāua, kina and crayfish.

I have very fond childhood memories growing up in Kaikōura, even though it wasn’t our traditional tribal area we were involved with the local events, sports and of course I went to school there. I think living in Kaikōura really set the direction for where I ended up as an adult, and in terms of my professional career.

I remember even as a youngster, maybe seven, eight years old, seeing plastic waste on the beach and thinking, ‘This isn’t good.’…and wondering where those plastic items came from and what effect they might have.

Kaikōura was a well-known fishing village and you would see parts of nets there sometimes with bird skeletons caught up in them. Even as an early child, I remember thinking, ‘Gee, this isn’t good, and how is this allowed?’ In some ways that started to temper my views and catalyse a level of environmental awareness  for places that I felt passionate about, given that I engaged in those environments for collecting kai.

That’s my background, or my early childhood. I went to school there, and in my sixth form year I went overseas on an American Field Service (AFS) exchange scheme to Thailand. This was back in the ’80s. That in itself was an amazing experience, and helped mould the sort of person that I’ve become now.

I remember when I first got notified I was going there, I didn’t even know where Thailand was. That was my level of naivety. I looked on the map and thought, oh my gosh, I’m going to be eating rice for a whole year and the first thought that went through my mind was “I don’t even like rice!”

I ended up being placed with a host family for a year. I often tell my children how isolated it was and they just can’t comprehend that we had no internet back then. Telephone calls were extremely expensive, and we weren’t that well-off so I made the personal decision that I wasn’t going to economically burden my family with lots of phone calls. Also, letters took six weeks for a round trip, and all the food packages that my mother sent me, all the Moro bars and Cadbury chocolate, got eaten by ants. The joy I used to get in receiving a big box at the Post Office but only then to have my enjoyment replaced by disappointment upon opening the box to find it crawling with ants.

Back then AFS Thailand had just opened its doors to this AFS exchange programme, so they were still figuring out how to run it. It was pretty rough and ready. I was hosted by a family in the middle of Thailand. I was the only foreigner in a town of about 70,000. English wasn’t spoken and I knew one Thai word when I left New Zealand.

It was an experience where you learn a lot about yourself, being in those situations where it is rūmaki reo or full immersion, both in terms of language and culture, and finding your way as a young person with all the other growing pains that you normally have as a teenager. It was a great experience though and it really shaped me as a person.

Coming back to New Zealand I continued my schooling (Year 13).  At that time, I had definitely caught the travel bug and wanted to get a job in the New Zealand Diplomatic Service.  Unfortunately, you had to have a degree in order to be considered for a job there.  So, I started thinking about a tertiary pathway in terms of university – although I was also tossing up between learning to be a chef because I love cooking.

But I continued into science because I like science and followed things that I liked or found interesting was my modus operandi when it came to university studies. So I didn’t have a designated pathway or crystal clear idea of where I was going to end up which is reflective of my academic and professional journey too.

I started off enrolling in forestry, but after a great year of socialising and not a great year of good grades I switched to zoology because I liked the marine environment. I thought, “marine biology, that’s where I’m going to go” but then became fascinated with molecular biology from one of my lecturers, who talked about transferring the luciferase gene from an insect with bioluminescence into a plant. When they added water and a particular chemical to the plant, the luciferase converted it into a chemical that glowed in the dark. I thought that was fascinating. That took my interest, and I ended up doing a master’s degree in molecular biology and endocrinology, which had an incredibly interesting research project where I learnt lots of different science techniques.

After my Masters I joined Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, which was a Crown Research Institute, although it is now called the Bioeconomy Science Institute. I continued in science but branched out into ecotoxicology, which is the study of the fate and impact of chemical contaminants on our environment and also the things that live in our environment. It doesn’t have a human focus, but rather it does focus on animals and plant species that live in our environments.

I had a real passion for understanding the impacts of anthropogenic, manmade chemicals on some of our native species. In particular, I ended up doing quite a bit of work in tuna (Anguilla eel species), given its importance and status as a really important taonga species for Māori right across the motu (NZ).

Another important addition to my career journey is that for the last 15 years, I have been associated with Māori economic development and commercial activities. This has occurred through a Māori land trust that my father is an owner in.  This is a land trust, called an ahu whenua trust, is located just north of Taupō. This experience has exposed me to so many things and for the last 15 years it has been an incredibly important and amazing learning opportunity for me, not the least being involved in a Māori organization, to which I have whakapapa to, but which has been successful in developing a large asset base without any Treaty settlement.  I also found that with success comes the challenge of continuing the legacy while remaining responsive to our owners and safely navigating an increasingly uncertain world.

There are a thousand things I want to follow up on from that story, but first, what do you mean you didn’t like rice? Can we go back to that?

It was just the thought, and the naivety and ignorance, that I thought I’d be eating rice all year. But obviously, no. I loved the food there. Fresh food, fresh herbs. I ate all sorts of weird and wonderful things, like coagulated chicken blood in soup, crickets, ants, fish entrails and baby birds. I had the saying, “if it’s green, I’ve eaten it. If it moves, I’ve eaten it.”

I love the food there. It highlighted how insulated I was. I even used to hate going away on sports trips as a youngster. I was such a homebody. We’d go away and be billeted by a family for a couple of nights, and I never enjoyed that. Then I went overseas to a country I knew very little about, no whānau and almost non-existent comms. for a whole year.

I’ve got a couple of rapid-fire questions, just designed to help people know you a little bit. Don’t think too hard about them. What is your favourite movie of all time?

I’d have to say the Star Wars trilogy because it left such an impact on me as a youngster. I remember going to see the original Star Wars as a young child and then going home looking at the stars. So I’d have to say the Star Wars trilogy.

If you had to pick one, which one would it be?

Return of the Jedi, that was classic.

Your least favourite chore?

I don’t think I have a least favourite chore. I just do stuff all the time. There’s nothing in particular that really gets up my nose.

Cleaning up after the kids would be one of them because they know better. That’s it. Though they’re a bit older now.

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise. Which means I have the rest of the day to do stuff.

What about Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?

Lord of the Rings.

What would be your go-to weapon in the zombie apocalypse?

Go-to weapon? It’d be a metal-tipped taiaha. You don’t need any bullets for it.

What is one song you’ll never skip?

One song I will never skip. Probably Queensrÿche, Silent Lucidity.

What’s your biggest pet peeve, besides the kids not picking up after each other?

Probably this current government.

I don’t know whether we’re allowed to print that, but it’ll be that. And when I’m cooking and I’ve told everyone dinner is ready, then no one comes and dinner gets cold.

Heart and soul, and then suddenly no one acknowledges it.

Do you sing karaoke?

Not if I can help it.

I’m very shy about it. Ironically I love kapa haka. I’m happy to sing as a voice in the crowd, but always a bit nervous about singing alone.

Say your arm’s twisted and you’re up on stage about to sing karaoke. What’s your go-to song?

L.A.B. Gosh, what’s the name of the song? One of the L.A.B. I really like L.A.B. Controller is the name of the song.

As a tenor, I used to sing tenor in haka, and with some practice I can hit those notes when I need to.

What is one app on your phone that you should probably delete, but will never?

Facebook.

What would you say your best life hack is?

It’ll be in the financial literacy space. We never had that exposure to financial education during my schooling so I think I paid dearly for it in terms of decision-making and missed opportunities.

Within financial literacy there are a number of life hacks in that. I have tried to pass on those life hacks to my daughters, like good investments, bad debt, compounding interest and the benefits of saving early – all lived experiences and hopefully useful life hacks, in there for them.

If you had to pick a place in this world that has shaped you the most and made you the person you are today, where would it be and why?

Kaikōura, because it’s a place that really resonated with deep down who I feel I am. Even though I don’t have whakapapa there, the place that has imprinted on me. We shifted there when I was three years old and I left when I was maybe 18 or 19 so I had all those formative years at that place.

As a child, yeah, what a beautiful place, as I said before, it really had everything that I needed and wanted. It was also, as I got older and in my later teenage years, the isolation and small country town vibe can also be problematic because you’re branching out and finding yourself, pushing boundaries, looking for things that obviously aren’t there, like clubs and all those things. Towards the last few years in Kaikōura, there were a few challenges there, but all the years prior to that, loved it.

That really helped shape and inform me. The place is important, but it’s also people as well. I call them signposts that you meet in the journey of life. Kaikōura had one of those key ones for me, my biology teacher, who was responsible in many respects for setting me on the pathway that I am on now. So Kaikōura, and that key person, helped me on my journey.

Was he someone who made you pay attention to the things around you?

He sat me down and told me to pull my finger out my backside, knuckle down and stop mucking around. ‘You’ve got the ability to do it and you owe it to your family.’ That combination of things resonated with me because I was being a bit of a rebel at that time in my life. He pulled me back down and said, ‘Just get on with it and do it.’ He’s a close family friend as well, which had added weight to what he was trying to say. That really settled me down and set me off on a journey into academia.

Going back to your early childhood, your introduction to diving and fishing, was there a favourite kai you used to eat?

We loved what we call crayfish mustard. When you pull the crayfish tail off, it’s got all the stomach contents, and when you cook it, it goes a brownie-yellowish colour. We used to pull the tails off, put the tails aside and just go for the crayfish mustard. I have very fond memories of chomping out on crayfish heads and eating all of the crayfish mustard because it’s not for everyone, but it’s something that I really like.

Karengo was another, which is a Porphyra species seaweed. They use it in sushi for the seaweed rolls on the outside, so it’s a relative of that. We used to collect that from Kaikōura. I always used to say it had a really sweet flavour to it and I’ve since learned that the species of seaweed we used to collect from Seal Point the only place it grows in New Zealand – so far.

It’s its own unique species. I’ve tried karengo from all over the country and it just doesn’t taste the same. Maybe that’s why it’s its own species at that particular location.

That’s also another great memory – going down with dad and my brother, harvesting karengo off the rocks, or seaweed off the rocks, taking it home, drying it and giving it away. Often we’d have whānau calling into Kaikōura because it was State Highway 1. We’d often give away what we had, and we’d have a lot of karengo sitting in the hot water cupboard drying. Those two things are probably the things that stick out in my mind.

Do you get back to Kaikōura often now, or just every once in a while?

Every once in a while now. I was doing a bit of work with the local rūnanga there. That work finished probably a couple of years ago, so not so much now, but I still know a lot of the people I went to school with, who now hold various positions within the community.

When I do go back, it’s always great to catch up, either through work or around the town. My father still owns a house in Kaikōura, although he’s passed away, and my brother is living there now, so we still have a bit of a footprint there. My mother was a teacher at the school, so everyone still remembers her. The embers haven’t gone cold, but we’re certainly not as glowing as bright as we used to be when we were all living there.

It’s one of my favourite spots in the country. From the past number of years, what changes have you noticed in the environment around Kaikōura, positive or negative?

If you look at the social environment, tourism has really taken off. Tourism was never a thing. The supporting industries in Kaikōura when I was growing up were the railways and the Ministry of Works. Through the 80s and 90s, successive governments stripped out a lot of the capacity within those government organisations. The railways and the Ministry of Works died, and then the town died in many respects.

I caught the tail end of that. I was at the start of my university foray and moving out of Kaikōura. Before I left, that was definitely when the town’s fortunes started to turn. From a social perspective, seeing the rise in tourism has been really interesting, and how those natural resources, we just used to take for granted, have saved the community from an economic, social and development perspective.

You go through the town now and it’s lots of cafes, as you well know, lots of tourism infrastructure. It’s good to see and a much better alternative than having nothing, having just a ghost town. There are many examples of small rural towns that have become ghosts of their former selves. So that’s been a positive for Kaikōura.

However, this success brings its own challenges. From a critical infrastructure perspective, having such large pulses of people enjoying what the town has to offer, particularly during the summer, can produce strains on the critical infrastructure in the town. Even the sewage system isn’t really designed for handling these massive influxes of people coming in to look at the town. On the one hand, you get these positives, but on the other hand, there are definitely challenges there for the town as well.

There has also been an acknowledgement that they are isolated as a town. There have been a number of firsts for the local council, in terms of looking at things like waste and how they minimise that impact, because dealing with it is expensive especially if you have to transport it out for processing. If they can minimise the amount of waste generated in the first instance, it’s financially very beneficial for the town.

As a result of some of those hard realities, the town has installed green waste composting which not only deals with a waste stream locally, but it also produces a beneficial end-product.  They backload trucks to save on waste that they do transport out of Kaikōura and have recycling and repair initiatives.  The town has also achieved Earth-Check certification.

All of this thinking lends itself to positive environmental outcomes. There have been other initiatives like marine parks established in and around the Kaikōura area, which I think have been really positive. A lot of the town’s economic resilience depends on the surrounding natural resources. They’ve seen that link and they’re acknowledging it through a whole range of things, which I think is smart and really positive.

As a country, we should be looking at places like this and saying, ‘Look what they’ve got.’ They’re trying to minimise their impact on the environment. In some ways you can use that in a marketing sense as well. You can market that to the world and say, ‘We are a town that’s designed and organised in this way to mitigate our impact, and we’ve got these beautiful aspects of nature: the whales and dolphins and all the sea life that lives there.’ In addition to the native bush areas, the terrestrial areas, walks, those sorts of things.

I think that’s really driven a lot of the thinking, which has been good.

Are you still a diver? Do you still find yourself out there every once in a while?

I am not a diver anymore, but I’ve kept all my gear.

When I was younger I even used to go free diving in winter on a sunny day just wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I knew when I was getting hypothermia because I had these signs, so I’d just get out. On a good day I would be in the water for 20-30 minutes, enough time to get a small feed and then I’d have to get out. Before I went diving, I’d make sure there was a sheltered place. I’d go diving when it was sunny so that I could curl up on the rocks afterwards and let the rocks warm me up.

That’s the level of sophistication I had when I was younger. When I was diving, I’d take my bike because I didn’t have a car. Very hardy when I was younger…very unhardy as an adult now.

Let’s talk a little bit about work. What are you up to nowadays? Where are you working, what are you doing, and what’s been exciting lately?

As I said before, I was involved in an ahu whenua Māori land trust for the last 15 years. That really dominated a lot of what I was doing and was my key focus. On the periphery of that were research projects I was involved with. I’ve officially come off the trust and now that I have I am moving back into the research space.

One of the really exciting initiatives that we have managed to get off the ground is being a member of a large Canadian research programme entitled Towards Sustainable Futures: Transforming Chemical Risk Management with Indigenous Expertise or ‘All Our Chemical Relations’. The programme itself is led by Indigenous academics, has Indigenous early career researchers involved, and it has four Indigenous communities. There are five subprojects that make up the programme. In Aotearoa New Zealand, we have one of those subprojects here, but the other ones are working with Garden River First Nation and Aamjiwnaang First Nation, which is in Sarnia.  Both of these communities are in Ontario, Canada.  A final case study is learning with indigenous communities in the far north.

The Garden River community have concerns about glyphosate usage in their forests and the impacts on the their local environment and their community. You might be aware of Chemical Valley, where the Aamjiwnaang First Nation are surrounded by over 60 petrochemical plants. Their traditional lands have basically been invaded by chemical industry, which has resulted in some horrible outcomes for that community.

The work at the University of British Columbia is being carried out with the First Nations up in the Arctic Circle around their contaminant issues. POPs, persistent organic pollutants, and how they have influenced policy over time.

We are working here in Aotearoa with Te Ao Mārama Incorporated (TAMI). They are the legal entity who are managing  the New Zealand subproject.  They have various concerns about chemicals in their environment including issues around discharges: wastewater discharges, sewage treatment plant discharges, which in Invercargill will discharge into the estuary.

Each of the communities has a different chemical or issue of concern with learnings that can be harnessed into how we consider and measure risk from an indigenous perspective, how we can engage with new technologies, like Ai or scientific techniques loosely termed new approach methodologies that remove the need for whole animal testing, and how we can broaden tertiary curricula of future chemical risk assessors to take into account indigenous perspectives.   That’s been a really exciting new initiative that we’ve been involved with. It’s a six-year programme, so we’re into the second year now. It’s funded through the New Frontiers in Research Fund, NFRF, which is run by the Tri-Agency, the collection of NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR agencies that contribute funds to this particular grant. They’re generally pretty large programmes relative to the programmes we’re used to here in New Zealand.

We’re privileged to be a part of that and looking at how we can contribute some of the unique things from a New Zealand perspective around chemical risk and chemical risk management into the Canadian reality. We’re also looking at what they are doing. They are doing interesting stuff around AI tools for communities around chemical risk. I’m really interested in that and how we might bring some of that information back and apply it here to New Zealand.

There is lots going on. It’s just started. We’ve had a real challenge getting the contracts up and running because of the differences between the New Zealand and Canadian jurisdictions and the rules they have around who can utilise grant funding. I think we’re there. Probably the last thing to mention is that this programme, having a Māori organisation actually being the sub-grant holder, being the holder of the money that comes from Canada, is novel for the whole programme. Currently universities act as that organisation and distribute money to the communities, whereas here the community is taking the bull by the horns and will distribute money to the science providers and the experts.

It’s a new model. I’m really proud and happy that TAMI has decided to step into the breach, which has been part of the reason why it has taken a while. We’ve been doing a lot of due diligence around this opportunity to make sure that, because they’re a charitable organisation, they are careful about cash flows, money in and money out, amongst a whole range of other things. I think we’ve got it to a stage where we’re almost there. I’m really happy to be able to say that TAMI is now going to be the leader, and it’s blazing the trails in many respects for the rest of the programme. Super stoked.

Why do you think it’s important that this project is Indigenous led? What’s the importance placed on that?

Indigenous led means that we have a really important value proposition to contribute to the space. If you look at risk assessment and management, it’s all empirically driven, notwithstanding that many of our Indigenous communities are at the coalface of these issues as well. Taking the community in Sarnia, that’s an extreme example of how Indigenous communities have been faced by chemical colonisation and the devastating effects that it has had on their community. Many of our communities are at the coalface of these issues, so they need to be part of the solution.

Secondly, Indigenous communities generally tend to have similar views, and one thing I found fascinating is that across the world, we have different names for things, we might have different processes, but some of our underlying fundamental philosophical constructs and concepts are very similar. To me, that’s a strength, that’s a power that we haven’t really utilised.

This is one of the unique things, where you’ve got this bilateral research programme between communities, and we’re seeing these amazing similarities between the Canadian communities and us, the Māori here in New Zealand. That gives me strength and confidence that there is a real role we need to play. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to play out, but the sense is there is important information that we need to build into and bring to the fore, and find ways to build this into how decision makers in both Canada and New Zealand consider these things.

New Zealand has, to a large degree, notwithstanding the current political environment, historically done some really good work in the environmental and chemical risk space. I’m thinking of the EPA, and previously ERMA, the Environmental Risk Management Authority. It’s looking at how we can provide the opportunity to demonstrate this to the Canadian authorities, government authorities like Environment Canada or Health Canada.

It’s also about how we can improve what we have already. There are still a range of issues around the risk assessment process. It’s a very linear, empirically data-driven process which gives it strength in one respect but how do you build in the cultural story, a cultural narrative, cultural data? How do we build it into this process, in a meaningful way? These are some of the challenges that still exist, but with an Indigenous-led initiative and programme, it allows us to do it our way, with our thinking and our people.

I’m excited to see how that pans out.

Taking a step back, and looking at all the experiences you’ve had, what is one skill that has been unexpectedly useful for you?

Being shy is useful. Despite my many outward facing roles I’ve always been a relatively shy person, quite reserved, and I’ve found that has helped me in some of the cultural work or work I’ve been doing with communities. It seems to be a characteristic that engenders a view in me that has allowed me to work freely in these communities.

The counter to that though is that at certain times you need to stand up and be heard and contribute – but of course doing that with respect. But that overall notion of maintaining that awareness that you are a visitor in these communities has helped – sitting down, listening and not getting too carried away with yourself at the beginning.

Also humour. At least the people I’ve worked with in these communities are funny people. Not taking yourself too seriously is another important characteristic I’ve found beneficial. Especially knowing when to laugh at yourself.

What keeps you going when the work feels slow or hard?

Being clear about the aspirations and goals helps focus me back down, rather than walking away, and keeps me staying in for the fight. If you have those goals and aspirations, and the ultimate end game clearly in your mind, that provides the fuel to keep going. There have been lots of occasions where I could have just turned and walked away, but I stuck at it because I believe in what we are doing.

In many examples, with that extra tenacity and commitment, those things have realised their potential. The first time that happened, I was like, okay, cool. But with multiple occasions where that’s been the case, I always encourage people to stick at it. At some point there will be a breaking point, but you have to push yourself into that uncomfortable zone for a wee while, if you can, and try to get some improvements.

What I’ve found works for me is reminding myself why I’m here, who this is benefiting and how it’s benefiting them. That can be enough to encourage me to keep tracking on.

What advice do you have for young Māori who are interested in the Māori economy or want to enter the science system?

In retrospect, this is my own life and journey, but working in tandem with your language and your culture has been such an amazing benefit for me. I’m not a native speaker by far, so I’m still learning in my reo Māori journey, but the decisions that my wife and I made around our language 20 years ago were important foundations.

For example, when I finished my PhD, I took off and did a year of total immersion. And my general manager at the time couldn’t believe that. He said, ‘You don’t do this. No one does this. You’re supposed to get into a research programme, start publishing.’ But I was firm and resolute in my thinking.  Besides it was a promise that I made to myself during my first year at university when I wanted to take both te reo Māori and science but couldn’t.  So I promised that when I was done with the science study I would return to te reo Māori.

We did that. As soon as I finished my PhD, my wife and I packed up and went away to do te reo Māori for a couple of years.

That in itself has been an incredible journey, and it has been so beneficial as what I call a trusted friend for the science that I do. It has allowed me, and underpinned a lot of my approaches with community, having the confidence to engage in our own customs and practices. That has been a positive in terms of my professional career. So my number one advice is take your language and your culture on your journey in your science.

You’ve seen quite a bit of what kaitiaki do in real life. Considering that, what does kaitiakitanga look like to you, day-to-day and big picture?

Day-to-day, the term itself has a contemporary understanding and a traditional understanding that is slightly different – at least my understanding of the term. If I talk about those, that might frame my response.

Kaitiakitanga in today’s sense is seen as being responsible for, or being a guardian for, something. That could be a child, an object, a kaupapa or an environment. If you look at the root word, kaitiaki, traditionally kaitiaki were never human. They often took the form of animals or some natural feature. Kaitiaki carried messages. Often there would be an intermediary, a person who would interpret what the message was, but the message itself was carried by a non-human entity.

In today’s sense, kaitiaki still exists in that traditional sense. When a pīwakawaka or a fantail comes flitting around, I’ll always say, “what message are you bringing?”

I personally still discern between the two definitions but in terms of kaitiakitanga carried out by people day-to-day, my mind goes to people who are just getting on with the business of carrying unreservedly for something.

If we’re talking about the taiao, or environment, I think of people who put te taiao first, are 110% committed to their environment. Kaitiaki who don’t see their work as a career but rather they see it as a calling.  They’re out there participating in management, protection and enhancement of their environment. They’re involved in training the new generations coming through. So how kaitiakitanga manifests is a really broad, and it also touches on and is woven together with a lot of other Māori principles and values.

Big picture, kaitiakitanga is a statement and a movement.  It is a positive re-affirmation of culture and antithesis of the current global status quo and so it is no surprise that this year (July) the language-learning platform Babbel voted ‘kaitiakitanga’ as the most beautiful word in the world.

Looking across your career and everything you want to draw on, what’s giving you hope right now?

The privilege that I have in my past and current roles is that I have travelled a lot and spent lots of time in and with indigenous communities.  What’s giving me hope is that indigenous people have the answers to the global woes that we are currently facing. The challenge that we have is how do we implement those within a mainstream environment of neoliberalism, unfettered capitalism, and the very narrow lens that this type of thinking projects itself through.

What gives me hope is that we have the tools, the philosophies and the ways in which we can address the issues that our globe currently faces, not just in New Zealand. But I’m a half-glass-full type of guy and coupled with the fact that indigenous people are committed to place forever, means that we are playing the long-game. However, time is running out and that is our responsibility, our obligation and our urgency: to move the dial towards a better way of how we interact with ourselves and our environment. Because without a clean and functioning environment our life on this earth becomes significantly diminished…well, zombie apocalypse. You said it before. That’s where it’s heading if we don’t sort this out in some way.