Transcript
Ngati Kuri hosted Taiatea - Gathering of Oceans in their tribal rohe at the northern tip of the country.
Iwi spokesperson Sheridan Waitai says Ngati Kuri has been pushing for various rahui including an ocean sanctuary around Rangitahua, the Kermadec Islands.
"Taiatea was about Ngati Kuri calling out to all those other Pacific Island nations that have put up protected areas and sanctuaries to try and build ocean resilience and also to counteract climate change."
Guests came from Rotuma, Fiji, French Polynesia, Rapa Nui, Hawai'i, Palau, Aotearoa, and the Seychelles.
They shared their efforts to conserve and protect.
Among them, a traditional earth healer or kaiwhakaora who says Taiatea's strength is in its collectivism and respect of different world views.
Richelle Kahui-McConnell's experience is in marine protection and giving the environment a voice.
"It is fundamental to humanity and a great deal of our people across the world, they've forgotten that connection. I believe that our indigenous understanding, our creation philosophy and mythology, how we are connected, how we have come from the earth, and therefore our obligation, is stronger within the indigenous voice."
Ms Kahui-McConnell says across the Pacific, people have been working to create marine reserves to protect the ocean and all that rely on it.
"Collectively, it's a surmountable amount of habitat, of migration pathways. It's excluding fisheries, commercial. And an important part in this is that it also, to a certain degree, excludes traditional practices and for our people to exclude our traditional practices is really really significant."
Ms Kahui-McConnell says weaving traditional knowledge with Western science will effect the most positive outcomes for the ocean.
She says government partnerships are needed to ensure legislation and resource for groups to monitor and protect reserve areas.
The NGO Te Ora Naho-FAPE's Pauline Sillinger works developing marine protected areas in her native French Polynesia.
She says traditional marine protection through rahui is working well.
"People really identify with the concept of rahui and they feel empowered. And they feel like it is their responsibility to protect the space that is being protected by the legislation. It really helps as well because we don't have to have the police for example, patrolling around. You can just have the villagers, the fishermen, whenever they see a boat coming, they will go up and tell them, 'you're not allowed to fish here!'"
Ms Sillinger says they are planning another gathering in Tahiti based on the model of Taiatea, to build on its momentum.
It will coincide with World Ocean Day on 8 June.
"We want to involve as many nations from the Pacific so that they can identify with this message and they can carry it as well. And this way you know, we create a network within our Pacific continent and then we can go on a stage that is international."
Ngati Kuri's Sheridan Waitai agrees and says the Pacific is an ocean continent with many islands.
She says participants at Taiatea agreed to move forward with a collective voice and advocate for more Pacific countries to participate.
"It will be the indigenous voices that will take this planet to the next level. You know, it'll will be our voices that will lead the change."
Ms Waitai says Taiatea will release draft strategic objectives in the coming month with the end goal for the year, a strong Pacific voice at the world's Our Oceans Conference in Norway in October.
