Maori tribes with ocean ties pledge to 'protect what is left'

Warming waters push species away and erode cultural practices... and it's happening faster than anyone imagined

- Tess McClure

Danny Paruru crouches at the water’s edge, letting it wash over his hand. Behind him, sharp peaks mark where the lands of his tribe, Te Whakatōhea, once stretched before they were forcibly taken by the crown. In front of him the surface of the estuary ripples.

“Thirty-odd years ago our kaumā– tua [elders] were realising that we were deemed to be landless people – that we didn’t have a lot of land left, after the lands were confiscated. So they turned their eyes to the ocean,” he said. “Places around this area provided our sustenance and our survival, over many generations.”

That ocean, too, is changing. On this shoreline, the tribe still digs for pipi, a native clam. But other food sources, such as cockles and mussels, have been shrinking or disappearing. The estuaries and mudflats are shifting, reshaped by shifts in currents, rising sea levels and the runoff of farms.

Even the scent of the pipi beds is changing. “That smell isn’t there anymore, that I remember as a child,” Paruru said – something of the rich, briny smell of mud has gone, replaced by a lighter, sandier wash of salt.

As the climate heats waters around New Zealand, Māori people are recording changes – subtle and dramatic – with some experiencing the losses of food-gathering practices. With the speed and severity of changes ramping up, tribes are racing to find solutions to preserve ocean environments and carry treasured species into the future.