Pupuri Whenua—Holding Fast to the Land in the Time of Environmental Crises

In Aotearoa, Māori tribal entities are perpetually engaged in place-based environmental management within their domains as acts of pupuri whenua—holding fast to the land—through resistance, resurgence, and resilience against māuiui whenua, or sickness of the land from unremitting settler-colonial legacies and present-day central government policies. Māuiui whenua is distinguished by protracted environmental catastrophes. In Tairāwhiti, multiple system failures to protect our environment lead to multiple exposures to disaster events. This chapter addresses Māori concepts of pupuri whenua and māuiui whenua applied within a coastal location in the Tairāwhiti region. In freehold title, Port Awanui was excluded from the Ngā Rohe Moana Act (2019), an act that returns legal governance of the coastal territory to Ngāti Porou, not coming under tribal management until May 2023. As an anomaly in this framework, Port Awanui warrants attention. In recognising the unbroken, inalienable, and enduring mana of the hapū o Ngāti Porou, this chapter highlights the importance of Mana Motuhake Ngāti Porou mo ngā uri whakatipu—self-determination for the future—in land and marine management exercised through rangatiratanga (collective authority) by hau kāenga (local people of a marae or vicinity) with environmental knowledge.