Taranaki leader Bonita Bigham says indigenous peoples are being criminalised for practising their culture. Photo: Mark Tantrum
The impact of forestry on indigenous peoples has been discussed at a UN meeting after slash was strewn across Tai Rāwhiti's land and beaches during Cyclone Gabrielle.
Māori leaders were among dozens of global communities speaking at the UN Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, in the hope of influencing the government to revive stalled policies for indigenous rights.
For two weeks, the world's indigenous peoples have taken the floor, sharing experiences of their treatment at the hands of the world's governments.
Indigenous Canadians spoke of mass graves discovered at former government schools and the Sami talked about being shut out of climate talks concerning the Arctic.
From Aotearoa, Mana Taiao, Tai Rāwhiti's Renee Raroa, called for an investigation into what forestry has done to whenua Māori.
"In recent years our territories have been repeatedly devastated by cyclones and floods, choking our waterways and coastlines with thick settlement and woody debris from clearfield plantation harvests," Raroa said.
Raroa spoke of how government land policy has put tangata whenua in this position.
She said Māori were locked into harmful land agreements, such as perpetual leases or restrictions of ahu whenua.
"Māori landowners need to be given the opportunity to make land use decisions that are in alinement with their responsibilities as kaitiaki and currently they can't do that because the economic drivers, value of pine forestry, pine for carbon credits and even farming over indigenous forests and land use practises that are more in alinement as an option."
Indigenous groups from around the world have similar experiences including being shut out of conversations and states moving them without consultation, or at the barrel of a gun, she said.
"What they said was that the impacts of climate change mean that they're having to consider whether or not to continue their genealogical lines, like that's heartbreaking."
Taranaki leader Bonita Bigham said indigenous peoples were being criminalised for practising their culture.
She pointed to Māori practice around tohorā, or carvings that could be confiscated at the border, such as under the CITES laws.
"The great injustice is that indigenous people have not caused these problems, these laws and conventions have been designed to address. Yet we have the most to lose. Our peoples were not the ones whose whaling and fishing practises and over exploitation led to species decimation," Bigham said.
Claire Charters says the forum is a way to highlight issues and put pressure on the government. Photo: University of Auckland
Constitutional law professor Claire Charters said the annual UN Forum for Indigenous Issues was one of the few outlets indigenous peoples have to air their grievances.
She said one of its key influences was the ability to put things in the spotlight.
"Highlighting these questions or criticising I guess the government in these forum can be quite effective. They're not often the main catalyst while the government would respond to one of these issues but it's one of many pressure points."
One of the issues raised was the government pausing progress on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples -- which New Zealand was one of the last countries in the world to sign, she said.
"The justification that the government has given is that the process took too long and there wasn't time for public engagement afterwards but from our perspective the government's unwillingness to accept the obligations and the declaration, you know we worry that reasons are actually more political.
"We just don't think any rights, human rights, indigenous peoples rights should be subject to political mood of the day in fact, that's why they're called rights."
Charters said she thinks the next steps should include appealing to the international human rights or international political forums to seek changes for indigenous people.
