Indigenous peoples' roles in conservation are important because they offer alternate perspectives and knowledge centred on the quality of the human-environment relationship. Here, we present examples of Māori cultural constructs, mechanisms, legislative warrants and customary (traditional and contemporary) interventions fundamental to the development and delivery of biocultural approaches within NZ's future conservation system. Biocultural approaches emphasise greater decision-making for the environment at the local institutional level, and contribute towards rebuilding a 'tuakana-teina' relationship (a reciprocal learning relationship and responsibility shared between older and younger persons) between societies and their environments. We further posit that the matching of social scales with ecological scales within local management is necessary for the effective implementation of biocultural approaches. Failure to do so could undermine motivation, action, energies and confidence of local communities.

Overfishing has the potential to adversely affect the ecological stability, economic value, social and spiritual integrity of a given area. Of these contexts, relatively little emphasis in literature is placed on the social and cultural consequences of overfishing and marine biodiversity loss.New Zealand's fisheries management system is regarded as one of the best in the world. But is this ‘success’ reflected at the local community scale? This study uses the knowledge of 100 participants from different stakeholder groups including Māori, New Zealand's indigenous peoples, and investigates local perception of the state of inshore fisheries stocks.Quantitative methods were used to assess the relative significance of important seafood species among different groups, while qualitative analysis highlighted main stakeholder concerns. A common consensus among all participants emerged; access to important inshore seafood species had become more difficult during the course of their lifetime with marked declines occurring from the 1970s onwards. Even where food species are present, they are typically harder to obtain, take longer to harvest and/or require expensive gear.Five species of marine invertebrates, three finfish species and one seabird were identified as having considerable worth to stakeholders. Of these, quantitative analysis revealed that pāua (abalone), tuna (eel) and tītī (muttonbird) were of particular significance to Māori stakeholders. Māori discussed pāua almost twice as much as non‐Māori, despite pāua ranking as the most significant species among both ethnic groups. Furthermore, Māori associated the depletion of pāua with a loss of cultural identity, hospitality, tradition, practices, emotional and spiritual connection to their environment. As such, in this paper pāua is defined as a ‘cultural keystone species’, whereby the removal of such a species jeopardizes cultural integrity.This paper serves as a case study bringing to light the disparity between an internationally acclaimed fisheries management strategy and the concerns of local stakeholders. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Creating new conservation law that more holistically and comprehensively supports hapu and iwi leadership in conservation management should be embraced as a critical step towards reversing the decline of Aotearoa New Zealand’s biodiversity. Treaty of Waitangi settlement statutes (for example, the Te Urewera Act 2014) and new conservation policies and practices (for example, the Department of Conservation’s Conservation Management Strategy Northland 2014–2024) throughout the country are strongly recognising the need for tangata whenua to be more involved in the conservation and management of New Zealand’s biodiversity. It is timely for conservation law itself to be reformed to better reflect and support these recent advancements.

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Abstract Scale mismatches in social–ecological systems constrain conservation by obscuring signals of environmental change, which could otherwise feed back to inform adaptive responses and solutions. We argue that engaging indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) in place-based environmental management could generate the fine-resolution information and workforce needed to alleviate scale mismatches. We illustrate our argument using a case study initiated by Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand and demonstrate that the current broad scales of hunting regulation and assessment in black swan (kakī anau, Cygnus atratus) management could obscure local ecological drivers of populations. Many IPLC can facilitate adaptive place-based management by continually monitoring ecological feedbacks (e.g., population numbers, habitat conditions) at fine resolutions through customary resource use and observations. However, disregard for IPLC rights, scepticism of traditional ecological knowledge, restricted opportunity to connect with resources, compartmentalization of resource management, and insufficient funding limit IPLC engagement and must be overcome to alleviate scale mismatches.