Indigenous governanace and protected areas
Te Urewera National Park
Lessons from Australia jointly managed parks for settlement of the Tūhoe claim to Te Urewera National Park
Joint management of protected areas, which is often portrayed as a ‘win-win’ solution for conservation and indigenous peoples, has been used in Australia as a mechanism to return ownership of land to indigenous peoples and facilitate their involvement in governance and management of those protected areas.
Similar arrangements have been proposed for Te Urewera National Park, which is located at the heart of Tūhoe’s homeland, in an endeavour to settle Tūhoe’s Treaty of Waitangi claim.
The Tūhoe claim for Te Urewera involves a significant portion of the country’s indigenous forests – for which the iwi has developed culturally distinctive criteria grounded in the concept of Mana Motuhake (autonomy, interdependence, and nationhood) and a desire to improve the quality of life for its people. National level conservation outcomes and public use of the National Park are a central part of the aspirations of Tūhoe. The challenge confronting such iwi is how to progress claims through the settlement process while developing the knowledge necessary to implement distinctive natural resource management options in relation to environmental, cultural and economic goals.
Between 2009 and 2010, research by Manaaki Whenua (Phil Lyver and Rob Allen) and CSIRO (Jocelyn Davies) scientists used three forms of investigation in order to understand how effectively a joint management arrangement might settle the Tūhoe claim to Te Urewera.
First, we established Tūhoe criteria for claim settlement as understood by members of Te Kotahi a Tūhoe (TKAT)—the organisation mandated by the Tūhoe people to negotiate settlement of their claim.
Secondly, we analysed the extent to which governance and management arrangements of three Australian jointly managed protected areas met these Tūhoe criteria.
And thirdly, in 2010 Drs Lyver, Allen and Davies accompanied a number of representatives from Tūhoe, Ngātiwai, and Ngā Uri o Whakakii including a Ngāti Kahu student intern to examine how arrangements and outcomes from three long established jointly managed Australian protected areas fitted criteria articulated by Tūhoe negotiators as appropriate and fair for settlement of their claim.
Tūhoe representatives were interested in experiencing first-hand what these joint management arrangements ”looked, heard, smelt and felt like,” in order to understand, how the various governance and management arrangements operated in practice.
Our research shows that arrangements for three long established Australian joint managed parks vary in their fit to Tūhoe criteria and aspirations for settlement of their claim. Some key findings from the study include:
- The overall governance authority that Tūhoe seek to have recognised as part of their claim settlement is not provided for in the Australian parks structure. Aboriginal ownership of land and resources and decision-making remains encumbered through the current arrangements. Park directors and government ministers still hold power of veto over aboriginal owned land;
- Traditional owners in each of the park’s management structure filled lower graded employment positions where they have little influence on management decisions;
- Our Māori study tour participants had expected to see after 20-30 years of joint management greater empowerment of traditional owners and greater evidence of aboriginal worldviews and ideology guiding management;
- In one example, Nitmiluk National Park, the traditional owners had established a number of successful tourism enterprises within the park with both the traditional owner and wider community experiencing benefit;
- The institutions that established joint management in the Australian parks do not specifically provide for maintenance of public access, in contrast to what Tūhoe specify.
Additionally, the researchers found that the terminology of ‘joint management’ and the manner it is interpreted and implemented clouds distinctions between governance and management that are important to clarity and transparency in power-sharing arrangements.
In contrast the NZ Treaty of Waitangi claims process provides for negotiations for settlement of Māori claims that encompass a broad suite of issues and redress historic and on-going grievances. They offer opportunities for reform that can address a lack of fi t between institutions, cultural practices and ecological regions.
Overall, the study predicted that Tūhoe criteria, which include both conservation and livelihood outcomes, could be best met by re-establishing indigenous governance for Te Urewera. Transitional arrangements over time (potentially 30 years) including government and other stakeholders will be important to build capacity and cooperative working relationships that are important to management of the area. This arrangement holds most promise of settling the Tūhoe claim and for development of adaptive co-management and opportunities for conservation and livelihood outcomes at a landscape scale.