Conclusion: Spiralling Forwards, Backwards, and Together to Decolonise Freshwater

In this concluding chapter, we bring together our earlier analyses of the historical and contemporary waterscapes of the Waipā River (Aotearoa New Zealand) to consider the theory and practice of Indigenous environmental justice. In this chapter, we return to review three key dimensions of environmental justice: distributive, procedural, and recognition. We summarise the efforts of one Māori tribal group (Ngāti Maniapoto) to challenge the knowledge and authority claims of the settler-colonial-state and draw attention to the pluralistic dimensions of Indigenous environmental (in)justice. Furthermore, we highlight that since settler colonialism is not a historic moment but still a ongoing reality for Indigneous peoples living settler societies it is critically important to critically evaluate theorising about and environmental justice movements through a decolonising praxis.

Co-Management in Theory and Practice: Co-Managing the Waipaˉ River

In Aotearoa New Zealand, co-management initiatives are increasingly commonplace and are intended to improve sustainable management of environments as well as foster more equitable sharing of power between the settler-state and Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). In this chapter we examine one such co-management arrangement that recognises and includes Ngāti Maniapoto iwi in decision-making about their ancestral river (the upper section of the Waipā River Catchment) and whether the implementation of initiative translated into tangible benefits for the iwi. Our research findings highlight how co-management agreement is perceived as overwhelming positive by both government and Ngāti Maniapoto representatives. However iwi note that they still face substantive barriers to achieving environmental justice (including the lack of formal recognition of their authority and power, and limited resourcing).

Legal and Ontological Pluralism: Recognising Rivers as More-Than-Human Entities

We explore the ways in which the formal recognition (to some extent) of Indigenous knowledge systems within environmental governance and the role of reconcilition in achieving environmental justice. We examine whether recent agreements between the New Zealand Crown (Crown) and Māori tribal groups (iwi), known as Treaty ‘settlements’, to establish shared co-governance and management over rivers encapsulate and are capable of achieving environmental justice for Māori. We draw on schoalrship on legal and ontological pluralism to consider questions of how to remedy environmental injustice and what reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples means in settler societies. Rather than seek to provide a singular definition of Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ), we instead examine how Indigenous peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand and other colonial societies are engaged in efforts to negotiate with and challenge the colonial legal orders, develop their laws, policies, and governance frameworks to achieve justice within the freshwater realm.

Transforming River Governance: The Co-Governance Arrangements in the Waikato and Waipaˉ Rivers

Around the world, many societies are trying to create and apply apparatuses that recognise Indigenous interests in freshwater systems. Such policies and strategies often acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ rights and values they attached to specific waterways, and take the form of new legal agreements which are directed at reconciling diverse worldviews, values, and ways of life within particular environments. In this chapter we review one such arrangement: the co-governance arrangements between the Māori iwi (tribe) Ngāti Maniapoto and the New Zealand (Government) to co-govern and co-manage the Waipā River. We analysis where the new governance arrangements are enabling Ngāti Maniapoto to achieve environmental justice and find substantive faults most notably distributive inequities, lack of participatory parity, and inadequate recognition of Māori governance approaches.

Decolonising River Restoration: Restoration as Acts of Healing and Expression of Rangatiratanga

We argue that it is important to acknowledge that river restoration (both in theory and practice) still remains largely located within the realm of the hegemonic Western knowledge systems. In this chapter we challenge the Eurocentrism of dominant ecological restoration projects by documenting the different framing and approaches to restoration being employed by Māori (the Indigenous of Aotearoa New Zealand). We focus our attention on the collective efforts of one tribal group (Ngāti Maniapoto) who are working to decolonise how their ancestral river is managed and restored through the use of Indigenous Knowledge, augmented by Western scientific techniques. A key focus is on restoration that is underpinned by the principle of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship) and devoted to healing fractured relationships between humans and more-than-humans.

‘The past is always in front of us’: Locating Historical Māori Waterscapes at the Centre of Discussions of Current and Future Freshwater Management

This chapter examines the historical waterscapes of Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes) and hapū (sub-tribes) in the Waipā River (Aotearoa New Zealand). We highlight some of the principles of Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) that shaped Māori understandings and engagements with their ancestral waters and lands prior to colonisation. We explore how the arrival of Europeans resulted in Māori embracing new technologies, ideas, and biota, but always situating and adapting these new imports to fit within their Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. In contrast, British colonial officials were unwilling to embrace such cross-cultural learnings nor allow Te Ao Māori to peacefully co-existent with their own world (Te Ao Pākehā). Military invasion, war, and the confiscation of Māori land occurred, which laid the foundations for environmental injustices.

A History of the Settler-Colonial Freshwater Impure-Ment: Water Pollution and the Creation of Multiple Environmental Injustices Along the Waipaˉ River

In this chapter, we outline the history of water pollution in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Waipā River and its tributaries and demonstrate how environmental injustices can accumulate slowly over time. We highlight how Indigenous (Māori) and non-Indigenous (Pākehā) peoples held fundamentally different understandings of what constituted contaminated or clean water based on their different ontologies and epistemologies. We highlight how Māori people and their tikanga (laws) and mātauranga (knowledge) were excluded from settler-state water management planning processes for the majority of the twentieth century. Since 1991 new legislation (Resource Management Act) allows for Māori to participate in decision-making, however Māori values and knowledge continues to be marginalised, and Māori concerns about water pollution remain unaddressed. Accordingly, in the Waipā River environmental injustice continues to accumulate.

Rethinking Freshwater Management in the Context of Climate Change: Planning for Different Times, Climates, and Generations

In this chapter, we explore environmental justice as an intergenerational imperative for Indigenous peoples by examining how different conceptions of time shape responses to climate change. We offer insights into how bringing Māori, Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, understandings of time can open new spaces for thinking about and planning for climate change in ways that do not reinforce and rearticulate the multiple environmental injustices (disproportionately experienced by Indigenous peoples because of settler colonialism). We examine how Māori concepts of time (as a spiral) and kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship) challenge the dominant framing of climate change (premised on anthropometrism and forward-thinking temporality) and provide the opportunity to consider how climate justice (encompassing both mitigation and adaptation) as involving intergenerational responsibilities to both human and more-than-human beings.

Environmental Justice and Indigenous Environmental Justice

In this chapter we provide a broad overview of three dominant ways environmental justice is framed within the scholarship and consider how Indigenous peoples’ understanding and demands for environmental justice necessitate a decolonising approach. Despite critiques, many scholars and policymakers still conceive of environment justice through a singular approach (as distributive equity, procedural inclusion, or recognition of cultural difference). Such a narrow reading fails to appreciate the intersecting and interacting processes that underpin environmental (in)justices faced by Indigenous peoples. We argue that the theoretical discussions and empirical research into environmental (in)justice need to extend beyond Western liberal philosophies and instead consider pluralistic approach to Indigenous environment justice which is founded on Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies, which include intergenerational and more-human-human justice requirements.

Introduction

Freshwater is essential to the health and wellbeing of both human and ecological communities. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the freshwater systems are affected by ongoing degradation directly connected to human activities over the last two centuries. Recently scholars have begun to question the efficacy of established management approaches, the extent to which current land-use practices are to blame and whether continued environmental decline in our waterways is inevitable. The continued degradation of freshwater systems under conventional management approaches necessitates a rethinking of how freshwater systems are governed, managed, and restored. In this introductory chapter we explore the origins of the freshwater crisis (a manifestation of multiple environmental injustices) within a single freshwater system: the Waipā River (Te Waipā o Awa).