Breaking new ground: re-inventing Māori role in Te Waihora /Lake Ellesmere’s governance

Abstract

Struggles relating to governance of water resources by indigenous peoples are a well documented issue in social science literature world-wide. Informed by the debates in this literature, our research examines recent initiatives to enhance Māori role in water governance in Aotearoa/New Zealand based on a case of the recently reinvented governance arrangements for Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere in the Canterbury region. In the New Zealand context, governance of freshwater has undergone significant restructuring in the last twenty-five years, with wide-ranging changes being precipitated by the neo-liberal agendas of recent governments. Emerging alongside this neo-liberal agenda was the revival of indigenous rights language in New Zealand, a reflection of recently growing recognition within the wider New Zealand society of the aboriginal customary natural resource ownership and management rights guaranteed to Māori by the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840. We argue that three factors: property rights, globalisation and the regulatory planning environment for management both enable and constrain indigenous peoples to govern natural resources within a post-colonial society such as New Zealand, using Te Waihora as a case.