Integration of Indigenous practices into fisheries legislation: Obstacles and opportunities for the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar)

Abstract

There are demonstrable ecological and social benefits of applying Indigenous knowledge in the management of natural resources. In New Zealand, establishment of customary fisheries management areas is, in part, to enable communities to apply local knowledge and practices in managing local resources. The management committee for a customary fisheries management area in southern New Zealand wishes to incorporate the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) into the regulation of the pāua (blackfoot abalone, Haliotis iris) fishery. Like lunar calendars across the Pacific, the maramataka informed preferable times to undertake activities such as fishing for millennia. This knowledge is increasingly applied in a community-based setting, though barriers remain to its incorporation into central management policy. Interviews were conducted to investigate what fisheries management based on the maramataka might look like, and to analyse whether this would be possible through the existing legislative framework. Integration of the maramataka may be possible via a fishery closure and issuance of harvest authorisations, however several obstacles remain. Firstly, closures have only been approved for conservation of degraded fisheries, and not solely for introducing management measures for a healthy fishery. Secondly, distilling customary practices onto paperwork risks distorting the original practice, so a balance must be found between ensuring enforceability of new measures whilst retaining their ethos. Lastly, we argue that integration of Indigenous knowledge must go a step further, to integration of knowledge holders themselves in properly funded, resourced, and authorised managerial positions, rather than the use and enforcement of Indigenous knowledge and practices by non-Indigenous people.