Keith Johnston and Eru ManueraTitle: “Healthy conservation relationships with Tangata Whenua”Department of
Conservation, P.O. Box 10-420, Wellington Email: EManuera@doc.govt.nz,
kjohnston@doc.govt.nz |
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Talk
Keith Johnston, Department of Conservation.
Eru Manuera, Department
of Conservation.
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AbstractThe national policies of
the Department of Conservation guiding the development of effective working
relationships with tangata whenua are being reviewed. Since DOC developed its Kaupapa Atawhai
Strategy in 1996, many parts of DoC's environment have changed. These changes have occurred both outside
and inside the Department. In this
presentation Eru Manuera, DoC’s Tumuaki Kaupapa Atawhai and Keith Johnston,
General Manager, Conservation Policy, will review these changing
circumstances. We will outline how
DoC is trying to learn from its experience and how national policies are
likely to be affected. |
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Talk
Keith Johnston
Today
we will take a look at national policies for partnerships with Tangata Whenua
and how we develop them. I think that
the distinction that Ronda Cooper just made about focusing on the doing rather than
on processes is a really important one.
What Eru Manuera and I will talk about today is about developing the
national policies that provide a framework in which the doing can be done. The actual operation on the ground of those
co-operative management partnerships is actually what is informing the
policies. What is happening now within
the Department is we are trying to learn from our experience on the ground to
construct the policies in a way that facilitates such efforts, rather than
laying policy over to force a top-down approach. So as one of those bureaucrats Ronda spoke of, I am legalistic,
process-orientated and formal, and I don’t give much away! But I’ll try to overcome those handicaps as
much as possible in the next 20 minutes!!
Over
its 12 year history, the Department of Conservation has been evolving an
understanding of how to apply Section 4 of the Conservation Act. That section says “This Act shall be so
interpreted and administered as to give effect to the principles of the Treaty
of Waitangi”. The Department continues
to go through a learning process as to how we interpret and apply Section 4 and
how we develop more effective conservation in relationship with Tangata Whenua.
Early
on we appointed Kaupapa Atawhai managers to conservancies all around the
country. This was complemented by the
appointment of Mäori members and strong Mäori representation onto the
Conservation Boards and the New Zealand Conservation Authority. At the time of the establishment of the
Department, there was a lot of activity in the courts and the Government
relating to the development of Treaty principles. These flowed through to the Department and led to the development
of a Kaupapa Atawhai Strategy which was finally produced in 1997, although a
lot of the thinking had been done through previous years. The case that Ngäi Tahu took against the
Department relating to the Kaikoura whale watching greatly influenced our
thinking and our interpretation since then.
The Ngäi Tahu Settlement has been critical in terms of taking us forward
to a whole set of partnerships and interactions on the ground with Ngäi Tahu
hapu and the runanga overall. There
have been other Treaty settlements which have been influential. We were taken to the Tribunal by Tuwharetoa
over the Taupo Tongariro Conservation Management Strategy and how it had
interpreted Section 4. There has been a
negotiation with Tuwharetoa working through the principles which have been very
influential. That has come through in
our new Pukinga Atawhai training programme within the Department. There has been a long debate on cultural
harvest issues which was started by the Conservation Authority and now is back
in the Department’s hands. There has
also been a review of the Department by Te Puni Kökiri and also some work done
internally with the Department by a DoC scientist, Ned Hardy-Boyes who is
sitting down there on a mattress. I
particularly want single out Ned’s influential work looking at existing
partnerships to draw practical as well as general principle lessons from them.
We
have also more recently reviewed the bulk of the consultations that we have
been involved in with Mäori over the last six to eight years. That includes the New Zealand Coastal
policy, Historic Heritage Review and the Biodiversity strategy
consultation. There have also been a
whole host of consultations around individual conservation management
strategies. Some quite clear messages
emerged from that review which Eru will refer too. Finally, we have a new Minister of Conservation who is a
Mäori. One of her priorities is that
the Department makes progress to improve working relationships with iwi and
hapü and in developing some better management relationships. At a meeting I attended recently she said,
“My primary responsibility is for the things that were here before people
arrived.” This encapsulated the
fundamental perspective of conservation work in this country and for the
Department. So she wants us to put more
effort in to improve our performance in relationships with Tangata Whenua under
that overall umbrella that recognises that other main priority.
Eru Manuera
Very
quickly I am going to talk about where we were and where we think we are
headed. My starting point is the 1997
strategy statement that the Department called the Kaupapa Atawhai
Strategy. The vision expressed in that
statement was “The Department, Mäori and the community at large are working
co-operatively to conserve the natural and historic heritage of New Zealand for
present and future generations”. So in
a kind of a cute way, I think we were looking ahead to co-management, even
though that particular word hadn’t entered our vocabulary.
Keith
has already spoken about the issue of consultation. There is a dilemma for us here because our consultation is a bit
up and down. Most of the time it is
down. However, given our best attempts,
we do try and improve our performance every time we consult. There are times when iwi say, “Hey, we’ve
told you before, when you were here, the following issues.” So we then say Ah ha, the coded message
from that is that iwi don’t want to be consulted. So then we don’t consult and they say “Hey, where the bloody hell
were you and why didn’t you come and talk to us”. And of course, once again, they are absolutely right. So it’s a bit of a balancing act. But in terms of consultation, the following
messages have come through consistently, time after time. I’ll just cover three of ten lessons.
The
first is the need for Treaty of Waitangi claims resolution. To the forefront for every hapü and iwi
there is a quest for a successful resolution of their claims and there is an
expectation that the Department of Conservation will enable that process to
occur smoothly and not hinder it in any way.
That message came through loud and clear in 1990 when we did our first
national consultation round on the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement. In our recent consultation on the New
Zealand Bio-diversity Strategy, the first question that came through once again
was how will the strategy affect our Treaty of Waitangi claims?
Secondly,
just picking at random, lets consider customary use. There was a very large paper on this issue. It was not so much the size of the paper
that mattered, but the time it took to assemble the information and to produce
it in a way that the Minister of Conservation was then able to give the
necessary directions to the Department on how to respond. We are still waiting with bated breath for
the advice which will come from the Minister, but in the mean time be assured
that we are working on it.
The
only other message from Mäori that I will emphasise today is the one on Mäori
knowledge. In the latest round of
funding, the Government has set aside money to be applied in the area of
Mätauranga Mäori. That money will be
allocated and managed by the Ngä Whenua Rahui Committee. The Ngä Whenua Rahui Committee is an
existing stand-alone body which services applications for funding to protect
our conservation, customary and historic values on land owned by Mäori. It is appropriate, we think, that that
committee be responsible for Mätauranga Mäori.
Mätauranga Mäori is the knowledge which Mäori hold. Each hapü, each iwi has its own specific
knowledge of species particular to its rohe.
What better location than here in Murihiku to talk about this particular
topic. The dilemma for the Department
of Conservation is not to intrude upon the people who hold that knowledge and
yet to be able to speak with a certain amount of assurance so that what we say
and what we do does not cut across the bounds of Kaitiakitanga over which the
local hapü or iwi have their Mätauranga.
The
Ngä Whenua Rahui Committee have not really had time to consider this particular
issue and it is for them to decide. But
I think one of the first criteria that the committee will come up with will
ensure that there is no way that Mätauranga will be put at risk. So an ability for the control of that
information to not be tampered with in any way will have to be found.
The
Department has gathered together all its responsibilities on all issues which
touch Mäori and we call this the Kaupapa Mäori strategies. It is managed by the
Kaupapa Mäori Strategic Policy Steering Group.
The unit’s role is to apply the principles of the Treaty to the work of
the Department of Conservation. That is
broken down to four specific areas. One
of these is policies to manage conservation in partnership with Tangata Whenua. That in turn comes down to policies about
relationships, about the tools needed to achieve partnership, and the
accountabilities that could be placed on the local scenario. That is where we might try to tell Lou
Sanson “Hey slow down, you don’t have to do everything that the Kaitiaki Roopu
wants to do. You know - give us turkeys
in Head Office a chance to put up the fence and allow us to say those sorts of
things. We also have a Wahi Tapu
policy. Anybody here from Te Roroa
would be delighted to hear that.
We
are working on a Mäori language strategy too because for Government Departments,
this is ‘Mäori language year’ so we all have to increase our outputs in that
arena.
Keith Johnston
In
summary, I firstly want to reiterate the point that I made at the
beginning. What we are trying to do is
to develop some consistent policy guidance for our managers based on our
experience of doing things with Mäori.
So the doing and learning from that experience will be the basis for
developing the policy, rather than starting from some abstract notions.
The
second point is that, unfortunately in terms of the timing of this hui, this is
very much work in progress. We are
actually in the middle of doing this work at the moment. So what you got from us today is mainly bureaucratic
process stuff. But as we are actually
in the middle of drafting policy at the moment, we are not in a position to
say, “Here are the details of where we are going to”.
What
I would like to see at the end of this hui is that we all have a realisation
that we have the commitment to working through the issues with good will. I hope people will be positive about how we
can work through things as well as having an understanding of the many
complexities involved. We will need
good will to work through those complexities.
I think we are making good progress.
Discussion
Question/Comment
(Keith Wood, Ngäti rangi o Ohakune, Mt Ruapehu)
Kia ora no tatou katoa. We have a co-management arrangement with the Department of
Conservation, part of the Tongariro Taupo conservancy. That relationship has progressed quite well
and I would like to mihi Ned Hardy Boyes for coming to his körero with us and
to gain our opinions on things. I just
want to relate a few simple things about that co-management exercise. Firstly, you need a willingness from the
Department and the people in the Department to actually help facilitate it
happening. I think at times we have
challenged the Department. I think that
we’ve got the right audience up there with Keith Johnston and Eru Manuera. Sometimes, we find things are going a little
bit slowly for what we would like to see happen as Mäori - for things that we
have an intergenerational responsibility to help to nurture, and protect. Some of the conflicts that we have concern
the whole issue of conservation - to preserve it and stick it in a bottle on
the wall - which conflicts with customary use - we can’t use what our tupuna
did. For us, its also a matter of real
participation. We have to get in there
as Kevin Prime and Ronda Cooper talked about and actually have hands on. To actually do it.
That was the focus for Ngätirangi when we became
involved. We felt we just wanted to do
it. We didn’t worry about all the
processes and the policies and everything like that. Those were things that were just going to create arguments and
they still do. The thing was to find
the right people and to make sure that we could develop something that would
benefit all of us. It gave us a real
and rightful place. Maybe the challenge
for the policy developers is to ensure that Mäori are in their rightful place
in these things. There is a need for
resourcing to provide that opportunity, so that we aren’t giving from our aroha
to participate in these things with the Department. That trust and honesty is something that needs to be built
up. There has been a lot of talk about
the Treaty settlement processes and the legal battles which suggests to me that
the Department is starting to co-manage things because we, as a people, have
been pushing in that corner with the lawyers and all the arguments along the
way. We have battled agencies of the
Crown - It has not been a personal sort of challenge.
So the question now is how quickly are these things
going to develop for us as a people and how is the resourcing going to
happen? And maybe also - how can we as
a people hold onto that last bastions - our körero and our knowledge - when we
have had everything else taken? How can
we ensure that the Department of Conservation or government organisation won’t
own what we have? For Ngätirangi that
is the biggest question. How can we
ensure that we will always have our knowledge, once we share it with someone. Once someone wants to put it onto a website,
it becomes open to the world. Will
everyone respect that? Kia ora.
EM
-
Kia ora e te
rangatira. What we are talking about
here is trying to get clarity. I think
that our staff on the ground at Ohakune would welcome the degree of clarity
which Ngätirangi are also seeking.
Yesterday the Corporate Management Team of the Department of
Conservation met for our regular six monthly meeting to talk about issues. Principal amongst those of course is our
relationship with Mäori. Developing
healthy conservation relationships is a
marvellous goal
which is still to some extent in the distance.
The factors which have been mentioned here are the same factors which
have been reported by the conservators who were present. We have good intentions but we can only act
within the parameters of the legislation.
We are responsible for administering twenty-two pieces of legislation. For those pieces of legislation which have a
Treaty of Waitangi section, we operate within the bounds of that Treaty
statement. For the large majority of
those other pieces of legislation that we have to administer, which do not have
a Treaty section, we are required to apply Section 4. But its actually very difficult to get a fit to then provide the
degree of certainty which we have just had here. Now, the advantages of what is happening between Ngätirangi and
the Department is that very good relationships have been built up from the
ground. That relationship is tested
from time to time by a seeming lack of movement from Head Office. I notice that one of our staff members from
that conservancy is here so at this point I will retreat tactically and allow
Keith to come forward and give some feel for where we think we can actually
confirm some of the issues you have mentioned.
KJ
- Kia ora
Keith. One of the criticisms
consistently made in consultation with iwi is that we have not been taking
traditional Mäori knowledge seriously enough and we need to use local knowledge
more into our conservation management, whether it is for our management or
co-management. The Department takes
that message very seriously. Then there is the difficulty as to how we access
that knowledge and use it in ways that are respectful and careful and recognise
whose knowledge it ultimately is. I
think that is only something that we can work through case by case like you are
working through things at Ohakune. We
must just work it through on the ground and be very careful and
respectful.
Question/Comment
(Trevor Howse, Ngäi Tahu)
Kia ora tatou.
Eru, my friend, I’m listening to a lot about co-management. I wonder if we are looking for a commitment
from the Department on its responsibilities and interpretation of Section
4. When I was a Conservation Board
member over the past few years I never saw a national policy that dealt with
the interpretation of the Department’s responsibilities under Section 4. I am raising these issues because of the
lack of balance between absolute extreme conservation and the needs of tangata
whenua. Kia ora.
EM
-
I’m keen to
preserve the friendship with Trevor so I will hand over to Keith. [laughter].
KJ
-
Kia ora
Trevor. I can give you a commitment
that we are working very hard on developing that policy at the moment.
TH
-
It is overdue.
KJ
-
Yes, I
agree. I suspect there will still be
issues as to where the appropriate balance is.
But that’s something we have got to work through and discuss and we are
trying to develop that national framework right now.
Question/Comment
(Joy Burt, Community Law Centre, Christchurch)
Good morning.
As I’m sitting here listening, every time I hear the word Mäori, I
mentally nearly always replace that with the word ‘community’ because I think
we are all in this together whether we have been here for many generations or
are recent arrivals. Across the board,
a lot of our Government Departments have become so expert, they have become
distanced from the people they are supposed to be serving. I think there’s a lot of institutional
bureaucracy that is failing to acknowledge the people who live and work with
the land. I believe the community,
Mäori and everybody else, needs to be far more respected. I hope your policy works really well and it
can be applied to the whole of the country in all areas of your management.
KJ
-
Thanks. It is true that if you go through the list
of messages that we’ve gleaned out of the consultation we’ve had with Mäori,
that many of the messages might also have come from discussions with private
land owners, with recreation groups, with environmental groups. Kevin Prime has just been touring the
country as part of the Ministerial Advisory Committee looking at conservation
of biodiversity on private land and would see some similarities between some of
those messages. It is important that we
recognise that and the Department is putting quite a lot of effort into trying
to address improving those relationships and improving the involvement and
participation of the community with it in conservation work. We by no means see ourselves as the people
with the sole responsibility for conservation.
We see ourselves as trying to serve the New Zealand public by protecting
the things that are important to the New Zealand public. We try to work with the New Zealand public
to do that. But I don’t think you can
just replace the word ‘Mäori’ with ‘community’. When we do that, we drive taNgäta whenua up the wall because it
is basically denying the status of being taNgäta whenua. So I think there is an important
qualification there that needs to be made.
That distinction is in part dealt with by the recognition that comes
through Section 4 of the Conservation Act, amongst other things.
Question/Comment
(Doug McPhail, legal advisor to the Mäori Trustee in Wellington)
Kia ora. I
bring you the greetings of the Mäori Trustee to this gathering because there
are a lot of interests in common with the people who are here and with the
people who are speaking. Kia ora Keith
and Eru. That was a very a interesting
presentation indeed. I hope that some
day in the future all of what you say may turn out to be correct. I fear that at the moment on the ground that
partnership is not happening. The Mäori
Trustee represents 7000 owners of 5000 hectares of land in the Rowan Elton and
his Advisory Trustee for the Hokonui Trust, for the Waimumu Trust, represents
owners of another 8000 or more hectares.
We are in the process of the practical business of trying to do
something with this land, but there has been nothing but difficulties with
DoC. I have to say that
truthfully. I wish it were
otherwise. There are confrontations in
the Courts, with DOC supporting other Crown agencies and preventing legitimate
and reasonable use of land. There is
denial of the right to use compensation land in the way in which Mäori wish to
use the compensation land. There is a
refusal to acknowledge that there is an obligation of the Crown when it takes
away rights by insisting on sustainable management. When it takes away rights, then the owners should be compensated.
So I am very sorry to have to introduce this note of
discord but I couldn’t sit any longer here without doing so to fairly represent
the owners, many of whom are here today.
I know there are others who will later present views on the whole SILNA issue
which is a major and multi million dollar problem. Over a series of years confiscation of rights has been threatened
on various marae by Crown Agencies. The
Minister of Conservation was the last one to do that on Rehua Marae - he has
done it twice in fact, over the last four years. I would hope that this dream which we are hearing about - the
dream of co-management, the dream of permitting reasonable use of land - will
come true and that there will be a real partnership. We talked about the Treaty and Section 4 of the Conservation Act
- it is nonsense the way it is interpreted at the moment. The Treaty has the status of law and there
has to be partnership. Now what is
partnership? Good faith, trust, all
those things are in there. Now that’s
what we need to develop between the Crown Agencies and Mäori. The protection of taonga is in there up in
lights as the big one. But the active
protection of the right to use the assets that Mäori have is what the Treaty
talks about. The Courts have said it,
so we can’t fudge that any longer. Now
it is sub judice so I won’t speak of
the facts regarding the case that I am involved in now with the Southland
District Council. But the main
principle at stake is basically about the ability of Mäori to be able to use
their land in the manner in which they wish to do so in their own way in
accordance with their own traditions.
Thank you very much.
KJ
- We are
certainly trying to make progress in terms of national policies in this
area. They will clarify things,
particularly for staff and iwi and hapü as to how we are going to approach
things. They will not satisfy all the
people’s aspirations. There are
different requirements put on us. They
will, I am sure, lead to a more consistent approach in good faith in working
through these issues, but at the end of the day we may not always agree. In terms of the details of Southland, I
don’t think I am in a position to respond to that but Lou Sanson, the Southland
conservator may not be able to sit here any longer and may want to.
EM
-
We need to
conclude here and end this session by acknowledging that what Doug has said
brings a touch of reality. A lot of
what you have heard is theoretical and as my dear friend George says “When are
they going to pull the theory down from the clouds and get down here onto the
land”. This is the same question which
has been posed here. It is a highly
complex issue. We’ve picked the areas
which we think are quite easy to manage.
We don’t ignore the hard bits but we hope like hell that the Lou Sansons
and the Bill Carlins and the various other people around can keep working at it
on the ground. And while they are
working hard on the ground they will be hoping very fervently that people like Keith
Johnson and Eru Manuera are doing their bit at head office.