Climate Justice = Decolonisation
Words by Te Waikamihi Lambert ( she/her; Ngāti Awa, Ngai Tūhoe, Ngāti Ruapani, Ngāpuhi)
Ko Pūtauaki te maunga
Ko Rangitāiki te awa
Ko Mataatua te waka
Ko Uiraroa te marae
Ko Ngāti Awa te iwi
Ko Ngai Tamawera te hapū
Ko Te Waikamihi Lambert ahau
Dear reader,
As you read through my pepehā, I want you to notice the way it flows. Try to picture my mountain, Pūtauaki, standing tall in the distance, below which my people have resided for many generations. In front of it, you can see my ancestral river, Rangitāiki, carving a path through the land and sustaining all life around it. On that river sits the Mataatua canoe which carried many tīpuna of mine from Hawaiki all the way here to Aotearoa. That waka is on its way to my marae, Uiraroa in Te Teko, where my tribe, Ngāti Awa, and sub-tribe, Ngai Tamawera, await me with open arms and a spare tea towel. This is my tūrangawaewae, my place of belonging, to which I am intrinsically connected.
The environment exists in a multitude of forms: mountains, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, rainforests, oceans, glaciers. Indigenous people exist within these systems, observing and interpreting the land and creatures around them. The way in which indigenous people perceive the environment is reflected in cultural values, societal norms, stories, songs, customs, and traditions. This is best demonstrated in pepehā, and the Aotearoa-wide reclamation of its place in our society as an important tradition which is shaped and informed by the environment. Back home, our ancestral mountain Pūtauaki is referred to in songs and stories as ‘Koro’, meaning grandfather. In this display of the Māori worldview, the environment is not only alive, but a part of my family and genealogy.
Western science inherently tries to compartmentalise and classify the environment into divisions, whereas indigenous knowledge asserts that all parts of the environment cannot live in isolation of each other. In Te Ao Māori, all living beings are interconnected by mauri: a life-force binding the physical world to the metaphysical. When the mauri of the environment is diminished by pollution or desecration, the mauri of the people is directly impacted. They may become sick, or feel unbalanced and unsettled. On the other hand, when we sustain and nourish the environment, the environment will sustain and nourish us. Mauri is restored.
Kaitiakitanga is a term often translated in Pākehā legislation to mean stewardship or custodianship of the environment. These definitions don’t encompass the many intricacies and complexities of kaitiakitanga. Kaitiakitanga is not one size fits all. It must be defined by localised knowledge of the environment to reflect bespoke issues, values, and aspirations. Stewardship is a choice which can be accepted or denied, whereas kaitiakitanga is an inherent responsibility Māori have to past and future generations to care for the environment. It is a way of life which brings forward sustainable solutions.
In our current environmental management system, scientists record the environmental state of an area at the start of their career and use this as a baseline for comparison. As the generations age and shift, the accepted norm for the state of the environment gradually changes due to lack of past information and past experience—a phenomenon sometimes known as ‘shifting baseline syndrome’. However, mātauranga Māori and indigenous knowledge has the potential to tap into historical accounts of an area through intergenerational knowledge—that which is transmitted from generation to generation in communities living in one area. This helps to identify wider environmental impacts that may not have been noticed. With all of the environmental crises we are faced with today, it’s more important than ever to have indigenous voices fronting the management of our natural resources.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs states, “Climate change poses threats and dangers to the survival of indigenous communities worldwide, even though indigenous peoples contribute the least to greenhouse emissions.” Indigenous people contribute the least, and yet we suffer the most because of our close connection to and dependence upon the environment. The climate crisis aggravates the challenges already faced by indigenous communities: economic and political marginalisation, loss of land and resources, and poorer health outcomes. The potential threat climate change poses to the existence of indigenous people, combined with legal and institutional barriers that inhibit our capacity to adapt to climate change, makes it an issue of human rights and inequality.
Climate justice is a human-centric approach to tackling the climate crisis by addressing the many intersecting systems that fuel it, such as capitalism, economic growth, colonisation, racism, exploitation, slavery, and resource extraction. To understand how we ended up in this climate emergency in the first place, we must look at history. It’s no secret the industrial revolution catalysed the speed of rising temperatures. This mass burning of fossil fuels could not be possible without oil and gas from developing countries. Colonisation forged the exploitation of oil and gas resources in these countries, and slave labour financed the industrial revolution.
The history of climate change is riddled with racial and social injustices, and such harm is still being felt today. In Canada and North America, oil and gas productions were unlawfully erected on indigenous territories, and pipelines were built beneath local schools and communities. Indigenous communities living nearby experience more health issues associated with air pollution and water contamination.
Oxfam’s latest research with Stockholm Environment Institute shows that the richest 1% of people emit twice as many emissions as the poorest 50%. In reality, the people who contributed least to the problem are the most vulnerable and unequipped to survive, whilst the biggest polluters live in the best care. The climate movement is not just about protecting the planet, it’s about caring for the people who live on the planet.
Climate change is being fueled by an unsustainable, capitalistic system in which the economy must constantly grow despite being located on a planet with limited resources. Biodiversity suffers at the hands of a few who cannot see when enough is enough. The system is not broken, it’s working exactly as colonisation designed it. Climate justice requires new environmental policies to encompass human rights, indigenous justice, and racial justice on a global scale. Decolonising for climate justice looks like giving precedence to indigenous knowledge and kaitiakitanga, supporting indigenous nations to work on green technology and renewable energy, and developing more holistic environmental management tools such as legal personhood (See Tessa’s article on page 22). Ultimately it is caring for the well-being of the environment and the people.
Toitū te marae a Tāne, toitū te marae a Tangaroa, toitū te iwi.
If the land is well, and the ocean is well, the people will thrive.
Nāku iti nei,
Te Waikamihi