Dr Shaun Awatere

Exploring horticultural futures in Wairoa, this project identified saffron, feijoa, and gevuina as promising crops to protect whenua from erosion and support sustainable Māori land use.

This project brought together a multidisciplinary Māori research team to identify tikanga-based strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
It consolidated Indigenous knowledge, promoted Māori-led solutions, and developed pathways for enhanced community wellbeing in the face of climate challenges.

The significance of this research project lies in its contribution to deeper understand what role Māori SMEs have as critical constituents of the Māori Economy. Recent years have seen attention paid to the merit of the Māori economy, based on the potential of an economy worth an estimated $42.6bn in 2013 (Nana, Khan, & Schulze, 2015).

The challenge for Māori carrying out development is to determine how to balance the drivers of a neo-liberal economic approach with the very ideals and principles that define us as Māori to ensure quality social and environmental outcomes for future generations. Through a previous NPM research project "Whakatipu rawa mā ngā uri whakatipu" the team has developed a prototype decision-making framework for collective assets, which takes into account well-being indices, tikanga Māori and financial measures.