Kua wetekia te hunga rangatahi i te ao tūroa ki tō ngā tūpuna, ngā mātua ō mua. He noho tāone e tupungia ai e te taupori o te ao, ā, ko te nohoanga Māori te wheakoranga e mate haere ana. I te tau 2018, i whakahaerehia e mātou ngā papamahi e 8 ki ngā tauira 13 ki te 17 tau te pakeke nō ngā Wharekura e rua kia whakatōmenehia te whakatinana o te mahere Cultural Monitoring. Ahakoa i whai hua te urunga o te Cultural Monitoring i roto i ngaa papamahi pūnaha hauropi, he wero nui kia mārama ai ki te pokapū o te reo hauropi. Ka pupuke ake te hihiri mō te mātauranga taiao me te hauropi i te huringa o ngā akoranga ki te ao ake o rātou mā, arā, ko te ao hangarau, ko te ao matihiko, ko te ao kēmuranga. I whakamātauria ngēnei akoranga hangarau hei whakahihiko i ngā whanonga taiao kia pupū ake ai te reo o te taiao, te mātauranga Māori hei tautoko i te hononga ki te whenua, ki te ao tūroa. I roto i tēnei whakākoranga i waihangatia tētehi kēmu tūāpapa e pā ana ki te hauropi o Aotearoa. Ko Eko te ingoa o te kēmu nei. He kēmu e tuitui ana i te tuāpapa o te ariā hauropi ki te Mātauranga Māori kia whānui ake te maaramatanga ki te taiao. Ko te mānuka kei mua i te aroaro o ngā rangatahi me te ao tūroa, ko te whakatōmene i te āputa o te taiao, te hangarau me te Mātauranga Māori. I roto i ngā raraunga, ko te 90% o ngā ākonga i ngākau hihiko, ngahau mai ai ki te kēmu, ā, ko te 65% i mau, i whiwhi i ngā akoranga hōu. I whakakitea e mātou, ahakoa e tupu mai ana te mate wheakoranga o te nohoanga Māori huri noa i te ao, ko te ao hangarau pea te huarahi hei whai kia tupu te toi, kia ora te toi i roto i te reo hauropi, Mātauranga Māori, me ngā whanonga taiao. Nā runga anō i ngēnei kōrero, me akiaki te tangata ki te whakatoōene i te auahatanga o te ao hangarau hei hua torowhānui i te tuituinga o te hunga rangatahi ki te ao Tūroa.

Aotearoa New Zealand's environmental policy and legislation recognises Māori Indigenous principles and values, and gives prominence to Te Mana o te Wai (the authority of water itself). However, current policy, legislation, and practice are inadequate for enabling Māori rights and interests in water takes and instream flows and levels, in terms of both involvement and specific allocation mechanisms supporting Māori values. We argue that a policy and implementation space needs to be created that ensures indigenous Māori engagement and outcomes in freshwater governance, planning, and management. This space should provide for an integrated, precautionary, and bicultural 'First Principles' approach, ensuring that Māori rights and interests consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi ( 1840) are enabled, including the exercise of mātauranga Māori (knowledge informed by Māori worldviews), tikanga (Māori customs and lore), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship). We outline a potential water allocation framework, Ngā Puna Aroha, that could provide direction and give confidence and certainty to the implementers of national water policy. Such an approach would need to be supported by a broader bicultural policy and we suggest an overarching philosophy Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho, which would encompass all natural 'resource' management, providing a korowai (cloak) for the management of each particular 'resource' or taonga (treasure) including freshwater. This type of bicultural proposal could inform freshwater and wider natural 'resource' management policymaking, regulatory frameworks, and implementation nationally and internationally.

Neoliberalism has failed us. Our waterways are contaminated, their mauri (life-force) has diminished; our economic growth is fast approaching environmental limits, almost 4000 of our indigenous plant and animal species are currently threatened with or at risk of extinction, and our biodiversity has declined significantly. Increasingly stringent regulations are being rolled out by policy makers to protect natural systems, but these are framed by Eurocentric measures and concepts. If we are to achieve our vision to improve the health of te taiao (the environment) and our people, we need to change the way that people interact with their environment from a position of extractive resource use to one of reciprocal exchange. Te Ao Māori (the Māori world view) thinking offers us a pathway forward to achieving sustainable livelihoods that enable both the natural world and humans to prosper. In this paper, we showcase the operationalisation of He Waka Taurua, a framework for collaborative partnership based on the dual elevation of both Te Ao Māori and western science knowledge systems, through a Māori agribusiness case study.

Indigenous Māori youth struggle to connect with science delivered in a Eurocentric model of education in Aotearoa, New Zealand. In transforming conservation biology through Indigenous perspectives, we asked whether Māori knowledge-based resources and traditional schooling (wānanga) methodologies increased the connection of Māori youth (rangatahi) to conservation science. We collaborated with a Māori environmental science body to run a culturally based environmental program (noho taiao) attended by 70 youth from three Māori-centric schools. We undertook surveys to assess baseline scientific understanding and to gauge how their understanding of the Māori-based conservation principles we introduced shifted over the course of the program. We developed a bilingual gaming app to introduce basic environmental concepts from both cultural perspectives, measuring its impact on knowledge retention for these students, and others at a Eurocentric school. Indigenous contexts for conservation learning markedly increased uptake of knowledge content, and enthusiasm for conservation concepts. After the program, Māori students reported that science was more accessible and relevant. Gaming as an educational medium was successful in engaging youth generally, but students primed by experiential learning from Indigenous perspectives had increased knowledge gained. Enabling rangatahi to explore place-based learning within a relevant cultural context allowed them to understand their duty of care to the environment (te taiao). Utilising Māori engagement mediums and mentors that resonate with youth are key to encouraging more Māori youth into conservation science. Therefore, empowering youth to draw from Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing can create a step-change in science participation and leadership.

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