Māori don’t need climate education, they need the Government to stop preventing them from taking climate action, says leading independent organisation for Māori business, Te Taumata.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw and Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri made the latest in a series of post-Budget announcements on Tuesday to showcase the Government’s spending on climate action. Included was a plan from the Government to ‘share learning’ so Māori could be ‘doing their bit to reduce emissions’.

Te Taumata Chair Chris Karamea Insley says the Government’s latest announcements are frankly insulting at a time when the Government is proposing to legislate away Māori landowner rights removing the single largest opportunity for Māori to engage in climate action.

“Māori landowners have a $7 billion opportunity to participate in the carbon economy,” says Chris Insley. “To make that possible, all the Government needs to do is…nothing.

“If our land is not tied up in red tape, we can ‘do our bit’ for climate change – as the Minister puts it – and for Aotearoa as well. And we can do it without millions in cost to the taxpayer.”

Mr Insley says the Government is doing enormous damage to the value of whenua Māori and the future of Māori around Aotearoa through their current proposal to remove exotics from the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Our Māori forestry leaders have been highlighting a potentially transformative opportunity to see massive growth in the Māori economy – with benefits flowing through every Iwi, hapū and whanau – by using what is otherwise ‘low productivity land’ to establish fast-growing exotic trees for the permanent category of the ETS.

“The Government seems unable to get past the coloniser mindset of telling our whanau how to use our lands and educating us on ‘doing our bit’ through the narrow constraints of the western view of land use,” says Mr Insley. “In doing so, they are denying Māori the right to use our land as we see fit, in what amounts to one of the largest confiscations of the value of whenua Māori in recent memory.”

Minister Shaw recognises “that transition should be led by Māori and that will require building Crown–Māori relationships and capability to work together as equal partners”.

“At present we have seen very little evidence of a commitment to this approach, as the Government continues to try to dictate their climate agenda to us, while hamstringing the single most effective opportunity for Māori-led climate action,” says Mr Insley.

“It is simply unacceptable to produce a raft of policies, followed by narrowly focused and time constrained processes that can scarcely be called consultation, and call it a commitment to partnership.

“We expect the Government to start from the beginning with us to show a true commitment as equal partners under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. At the very least, they need to get out of our way and allow our landowners to unlock the potential of our whenua as a transformative resource for climate action.”

Te Taumata will be carrying its message to Government as part of a delegation of Māori landowner leaders and forestry experts who will be travelling to Wellington to meet with Ministers on 9th June.

© Scoop Media