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Sustainability
A Guide Through Māori Values
Māori have a long history of living in harmony with nature. Māori culture is deeply connected to the natural world and inherently embraces sustainability. By understanding Māori values and how they relate to sustainability, we have the opportunity to integrate te ao Māori perspectives into our lives and apply this knowledge in addressing our sustainability challenges.
This guide offers ideas on how you can apply Māori values in your everyday life, and highlights how
the University showcases these values in our Living Pā.
Manaakitanga
Manaakitanga
Manaakitanga can be understood to encompass hospitality and generosity. To manaaki someone is to show them care, to welcome them into your environment and meet their needs. The concept of manaakitanga also extends to looking after the needs of the whenua (land) to ensure it's sustainability for future generations.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Manaakitanga can be applied in addressing our sustainability challenges by nurturing caring relationships with people, our communities, and the environment. This value can be demonstrated in everyday life by finding opportunities to support those (and the world) around us.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
The Living Pā
MANAAKITANGA
The building process applied to the Living Pā includes specifying that only non-toxic materials be used in order to protect people and the whenua from harmful chemicals across the whole life cycle: during manufacture, construction, occupation, and at the structure's end of life. Once built, the Living Pā will be a place to manaaki visitors, students and staff, to be made to feel welcome and hosted generously in ways that are not wasteful or unsustainable.
On the University campus . . .
Whakapapa
Whakapapa
Whakapapa can be understood as our genealogical descent and connection to people, place and things, both animate and inanimate. Whakapapa literally means 'to place layers', and refers to the generations of ancestors who have gone before.
The narratives around whakapapa explain the origin, order
and our connection to the world around us.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Whakapapa connects us to each other and the natural world around us. It also reminds us that through that connection we have a duty of care, to support and protect our kin for the present and future generations.
The next time you go for a walk, consider the connection and kinship that you have with the environment around you.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
The ancestors depicted in the carved pou (posts) of the wharenui are connected to the people that make up the community of Te Herenga Waka today. The heke (rafters) in the wharenui reflect plants and animals from nature and reinforce their connection to our university community. The Living Pā seeks to reinforce and restore our connections to nature through design decisions that will revitalise water sources, increase native planting, and reflect our Māori ancestors and their practices.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
WHAKAPAPA
Whanaungatanga
Whanaungatanga
Can be defined as a sense of family-like connection. Through shared experiences, values and interests, groups of people can develop whanaungatanga. With whanaungatanga comes a heightened sense of connection, engagement, familiarity and willingness to support each other.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Whanaungatanga celebrates the unity of all life, both human and more-than-human alike. By cultivating whanaungatanga in our everyday lives we can form meaningful connections with the environment, people, organisations, and Iwi, and use these connections to work collectively in developing a harmonious and sustainable future.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
The Living Pā seeks to be a good neighbour, caring about the experiences of those around the site, and making sure that others have an opportunity to engage with and learn from it, feel connected to it, and join in its success. An overt connection is also being made between the built environment and the natural environment around the Living Pā.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
WHANAUNGATANGA
Mohiotanga
Mōhiotanga
Mōhiotanga can be defined as knowledge, awareness and insight. The value of mōhiotanga is about acquiring knowledge of your surroundings, communities and the world at large in order to better understand and contribute to them.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Mōhiotanga is the value of building on the knowledge we already have while remaining open to learning new information and worldviews. Addressing sustainability requires us to seek innovative solutions as well as looking to indigenous knowledge as a source of wisdom. We can harness the value of Mōhiotanga by seeking new perspectives and strategies, and by embodying the whakatauki (Māori proverb) "Ka mua, ka muri":
walking backwards into the future.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
The Living Pā provides many examples from which
our students and teachers can both gain greater knowledge of sustainable practices - from monitoring the natural water flows on the site, and studying the site's solar access for energy generation, to capturing data on the performance of the building.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
MŌHIOTANGA
Kaitiakitanga
Kaitiakitanga
Kaitiakitanga can be understood to encompass guardianship, stewardship, and protection. As a value, kaitiakitanga recognises that we have a duty to care and protect the environment and those around us. This is reinforced through our whakapapa connections but is also essential for our ongoing resilience and survival.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Kaitiakitanga is about protecting those taonga (treasures) that are vulnerable or need our help. You can enact kaitiakitanga by demonstrating respect and care for the environment and natural resources that you interact with on a daily basis.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
The Living Pā is designed to not only minimise impact on the environment, but to actively restore nature. It achieves this by generating more energy than it uses, and by protecting the surrounding habitat through carefully considered design.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
KAI T IAKIKITANGA
Mauri
Mauri
Mauri can be understood to be the life force, vital essence, and the essential quality and vitality of a being or entity. Mauri can exist within physical objects, individuals, ecosystems and social groups.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Mauri recognises that everything has a life force and thereby connects and unites us all. It serves as a reminder that all forms of life, human and more-than-human, play an interwoven role in our sustainability goals and challenges. The next time you go for a walk consider the mauri that resides in the world around you and within you.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
Inside the Living Pā building is a mauri stone. The mauri stone embodies the building's life force and connects it to place, people and the past. The mauri stone draws from the vitality of the nature within which it is situated.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
MAURI
Whai Mātauranga
Whai Mātauranga
Whai mātauranga can be understood as both the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual curiosity. The act of whai mātauranga is synonymous with the core research function of universities. It articulates the Māori value of investigation and the seeking of knowledge, which underpins many of the traditional pūrakau (stories) and contemporary practices of Māoridom.
YOUR PART TO PLAY:
Whai mātauranga is about building on the knowledge we already have while remaining open to learning new information and worldviews. Addressing sustainability requires us to seek innovative solutions as well as looking to indigenous knowledge as a source of wisdom.
We can harness the value of whai mātauranga by seeking new perspectives and strategies as we work to make positive changes within our community.
How might you apply this value in your everyday life?
As part of pursuing new knowledge, the Living Pā building will itself be used as a teaching tool for students, and as a demonstration project to influence and educate other construction projects on campus and beyond.
On the University campus . . .
The Living Pā
WHAI MĀTAURANGA
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