Landscape change as a platform for environmental and social healing

Abstract

Aotearoa New Zealand is characterised by dynamic landscapes. Major landscape-altering events, such as earthquakes, floods, landslides and tsunami, have deeply influenced the relationships that many Māori, the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand, have with their ancestral landscapes. This work documents perspectives of landscape change from five Māori individuals from various iwi (tribes) and hapū (kin groups) around Aotearoa New Zealand, who have strong ties with their tūrangawaewae (place of connection). In exercising the Māori principle of whanaungatanga, we conducted semi-structured interviews following a general inductive approach over a series of meetings. This research indicates that no matter the cause of a landscape-altering event, connections, sustainability, reciprocity and adaptability are core values to uphold. These values can be used to guide human activity and involvement pertaining to responding to the event days, months and years after. This work also indicates that altered landscapes have a natural way of healing themselves through time, and that people play an important role in defining landscape change and recovery following landscape-altering events.