Rivers, lakes, streams, and springs have been described as the bloodways of Papatūānuku, earth mother. On this view of the world, water is life. We are witnesses to the importance of water for all communities when the health and well‐being of our waterways are at risk. In New Zealand, governance and management systems have not been able to cope with legacy issues nor are they coping with the complex problems of diffuse pollution from intensive farming, climate change, pest species, and population growth. In seeking ways to improve freshwater management, there are increasing calls to include tikanga (indigenous laws and values) into decision‐making frameworks. Indigenous concepts such as kaitiakitanga (the responsibility to take care of natural resources) and Te Mana o te Wai (restoring and protecting the integrity of water) have gained traction. This article will explain these concepts through a distinctively indigenous lens and highlight some of the challenges of integrating tikanga into dominant western frameworks.

This collection brings together a range of viewpoints and disciplines to emphasise the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration). Authors reflect on the Declaration’s impact 10 years after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and on ways to continue the journey towards implementation.

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is known throughout the world for its beautiful scenery, but behind those scenes there are many stories of how, over time, human activities have degraded the health and wellbeing of our lands and waterways. The Indigenous Maori have long fought to defend the integrity of natural resources who do not have a voice of their own in the processes of law and policy making. Ecological integrity is an ethical concept that values the state of nature being whole and unimpaired such as might be found in places of wild nature, untouched by human exploitation. This paper seeks to provide a domestic example of the application of the environmental ethic of the indigenous Maori which ensures that humans are kaitiaki (guardians) of their surrounding environment by virtue of shared genealogy, and how this ethic is being applied to restore and protect the health and wellbeing of the Waikato River, New Zealand's longest. This particular river restoration project reflects many of the important aspects of ecological integrity. It serves, too, as a domestic example of the most sophisticated attempt at powersharing to date between Maori and the Crown in relation to natural resources, which may be of interest to other jurisdictions.