Progenitor: An exploration of indigenous values and waterway management through immersive digital landscapes

<p>Over the last One hundred years water quality of New Zealand harbours and waterways have diminished due to the unconcern of infrastructural development and poor public waterway and harbour awareness. By exploring the conventional methods traditionally involved with kaitiakitanga and how to digitally map and represent these values through virtual representation, simulation and management, the ultimate aim of this thesis is to establish a kaitiaki approach to restoring a maori holistic world view perspective and the mana tupuna of the indigenous peoples of Porirua. During the past decade, the Maori indigenous peoples of New Zealand have had land returned from the crown in light of the post treaty settlement. Due to the deforestation and ecocide of many Tribal lands across New Zealand, Tangata Whenua and Ahi Kaa have culturally detached with their lands, and the need to re-establish the Kaitiaki and mana within those areas is highly prioritized. The argument that unfolds now is ‘How to restore and revitalize sacred landscapes that have been exposed to the demise of natural resources and have lost significance value resulting in the disappearance of mana and whakapapa of many tribal lands?’ Through both a landscape architectural lens and an Indigenous lens the aim of this thesis is to research and employ new and alternative methods of resource management by incorporating new and upcoming design software in correlation to Maori Land holdings and collaboration with iwi. The collateral damage caused by commercial and industrial development has over the past decade has also sabotaged values of Kaitiaki due to the increase of hard surface infrastructure and polluted waterways. Current methods of mapping traditional landscapes are limited when it comes to the ability to encapsulate an environment with cultural values. This research investigates the potential of digital tools and iwi collaboration to enhance the experiential aspect of an environment through an immersive, interactive and open collaborative 3D environment. By leveraging the potential of photogrammetry to represent a 3D scene of certain areas, the potential to test and simulate current land management will be tested through a 3D model. Equipped with live feeds of data such as climate, tree species, this model’s purpose will be to emulate a cultural landscape and reconnect the loss of kaitiaki between Iwi and their Rohe. This tool will be designed to enable user interaction and commentary to simulate realistic scenes of their day to day scenery in order to become more aware of the impacts of kaitiaki and whakapapa. Both Iwi and council have a long-term interest in the design of good landscapes that reflect culturally while enabling methods of traditional kaupapa and kaitiakitanga. My goal is to aid this design process through landscape architecture.</p>

Progenitor: An exploration of indigenous values and waterway management through immersive digital landscapes

<p>Over the last One hundred years water quality of New Zealand harbours and waterways have diminished due to the unconcern of infrastructural development and poor public waterway and harbour awareness. By exploring the conventional methods traditionally involved with kaitiakitanga and how to digitally map and represent these values through virtual representation, simulation and management, the ultimate aim of this thesis is to establish a kaitiaki approach to restoring a maori holistic world view perspective and the mana tupuna of the indigenous peoples of Porirua. During the past decade, the Maori indigenous peoples of New Zealand have had land returned from the crown in light of the post treaty settlement. Due to the deforestation and ecocide of many Tribal lands across New Zealand, Tangata Whenua and Ahi Kaa have culturally detached with their lands, and the need to re-establish the Kaitiaki and mana within those areas is highly prioritized. The argument that unfolds now is ‘How to restore and revitalize sacred landscapes that have been exposed to the demise of natural resources and have lost significance value resulting in the disappearance of mana and whakapapa of many tribal lands?’ Through both a landscape architectural lens and an Indigenous lens the aim of this thesis is to research and employ new and alternative methods of resource management by incorporating new and upcoming design software in correlation to Maori Land holdings and collaboration with iwi. The collateral damage caused by commercial and industrial development has over the past decade has also sabotaged values of Kaitiaki due to the increase of hard surface infrastructure and polluted waterways. Current methods of mapping traditional landscapes are limited when it comes to the ability to encapsulate an environment with cultural values. This research investigates the potential of digital tools and iwi collaboration to enhance the experiential aspect of an environment through an immersive, interactive and open collaborative 3D environment. By leveraging the potential of photogrammetry to represent a 3D scene of certain areas, the potential to test and simulate current land management will be tested through a 3D model. Equipped with live feeds of data such as climate, tree species, this model’s purpose will be to emulate a cultural landscape and reconnect the loss of kaitiaki between Iwi and their Rohe. This tool will be designed to enable user interaction and commentary to simulate realistic scenes of their day to day scenery in order to become more aware of the impacts of kaitiaki and whakapapa. Both Iwi and council have a long-term interest in the design of good landscapes that reflect culturally while enabling methods of traditional kaupapa and kaitiakitanga. My goal is to aid this design process through landscape architecture.</p>

Mapping Soil Properties to Advance the State of Spatial Soil Information for Greater Food Security on US Tribal Lands

Knowledge, data, and understanding of soils is key for advancing agriculture and society. There is currently a critical need for sustainable soil management tools for enhanced food security on Native American Tribal Lands. Tribal Reservations have basic soil information and limited access to conservation programs provided to other U.S producers. The objective of this study was to create first ever high-resolution digital soil property maps of Quapaw Tribal Lands with limited data for sustainable soil resource management. We used a digital soil mapping (DSM) approach based on fuzzy logic to model the spatial distribution of 24 soil properties at 0–15 and 15–30 cm depths. A digital elevation model with 3 m resolution was used to derive terrain variables and a total of 28 samples were collected at 0–30 cm over the 22,880-ha reservation. Additionally, soil property maps were derived from Gridded Soil Survey Geographic Database (gSSURGO) for comparison. When comparing properties modeled by DSM to those derived from gSSURGO, DSM resulted in lower root mean squared error (RMSE) for percent clay and sand at 0–15 cm, and cation exchange capacity, percent clay, and pH at 15–30 cm. Conversely, gSSURGO-derived maps resulted in lower RMSE for cation exchange capacity, pH, and percent silt at the 0–15 cm depth, and percent sand and silt at the 15–30 cm depth. Although, some of the soil properties derived from gSSURGO had lower RMSE, spatial soil property patterns modeled by DSM were in better agreement with the topographic complexity and expected soil-landscape relationships. The proposed DSM approach developed property maps at high-resolution, which sets the baseline for production of new spatial soil information for Quapaw Tribal soils. It is expected that these maps and future versions will be useful for soil, crop, and land-use decisions at the farm and Tribal-level for increased agricultural productivity and economic development. Overall, this study provides a framework for developing DSM on Tribal Lands for improving the accuracy and detail of soil property maps (relative to off the shelf products such as SSURGO) that better represents soil-forming environments and the spatial variability of soil properties on Tribal Lands.

“I Hope to Hell Nothing Goes Back to The Way It Was Before”: COVID-19, Marginalization, and Native Nations

We draw on new and original data to examine both partisan and systemic inequities that have fueled the spread of COVID-19 in Native America. We show how continued political marginalization of Native Americans has compounded longstanding inequalities and endangered the lives of Native peoples. Native nations have experienced disproportionate effects from prior health epidemics and pandemics, and in 2020, Native communities have seen greater rates of infection, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. We find that Native nations have more COVID-19 cases if they are located in states with a higher ratio of Trump supporters and reside in states with Republican governors. Where there is longstanding marginalization, measured by lack of clean water on tribal lands and health information in Native languages, we find more COVID-19 cases. Federal law enables non-members to flout tribal health regulations while on tribal lands, and correspondingly, we find that COVID-19 cases rise when non-members travel onto tribal lands. Our findings engage the literatures on Native American politics, health policy within U.S. federalism, and structural health inequalities, and should be of interest to both scholars and practitioners interested in understanding COVID-19 outcomes across Tribes in the United States.