Māori Climate Justice: Energy & Food Sovereignty in Preventing Future Land Confiscations

Alison Anitawaru, Cole (Ngāti ;Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Taranaki Whānui), Victoria University of Wellington

This research is examines Māori approaches to climate in order to propose an Indigenous foundation for sovereignty over our means of survival. The structure of our neo-colonial world systems is deeply enmeshed in the causes of the climate crisis, and it is of no historically derived coincidence that the communities experiencing the first waves of climate change are Indigenous, i.e. the social grouping most excluded from the colonial spaces creating the current climate change responses. I am developing a new approach based on the lived experience of our iwi as we build solutions to safeguard our future.

With climate change, our whenua will again be coveted and contested. There is a very real risk of a future wave of confiscations of Māori land as a means to respond to the stressors of climate change, be it coastal sea-level rise, agricultural viability, food security, or loss of freshwater access. My research seeks to uncover strategies to guard against any future State pre-emption purchases of land. The solution will be building resilient models of active Māori sovereignty.