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Listening to the Land

Like many scientists, she’s been listening to communities from around the world report on the effects of climate change. “Indigenous people who live �in really cold places like Alaska have already talked about unusual changes in their environment. Lakes are thawing out earlier than they used to. Mosquitoes are hatching earlier and growing faster.” These reports made Pauline wonder whether Māori communities might be aware of similar changes in Aotearoa. Could climate change be affecting �how our wildlife behaves?

by Laura Goodall

Pauline Harris �is a scientist of Rongomaiwahine

and Ngāti Kahungunu descent.

To answer this question, Pauline is working with a team �of researchers to visit iwi and hapū throughout the country. The mātauranga held by these communities extends back hundreds of years. It could �reveal insights into how our plants and animals acted in the past – and how these activities are changing now.

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A lake thawing in Alaska

CRACKING THE CODE

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Photograph from the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, reference 1/2-037930-F, used with permission

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Mātauranga Māori is made up of Māori knowledge, culture, values, �and beliefs. It includes information about predicting the weather, �healing illnesses, planting crops, and navigating waka. It also includes the worldview that humans exist within nature, not above it.

Mātauranga was developed over thousands of years and brought to Aotearoa by early Polynesian explorers. Once in Aotearoa, it continued to grow and guide Māori �in their settlement of a new country. Mātauranga can reveal what Aotearoa was like before Europeans arrived �and before rapid climate change took place. It can tell scientists things about Aotearoa that science alone cannot tell them.

Māori didn’t write before Europeans arrived, and most mātauranga has always been spoken. Many elders continue this oral tradition today. The best way to discover this knowledge is to kōrero – engage in conversation.

What is

Mātauranga Māori?

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Paratene Ngata showing Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck) how to make an eel basket, 1922

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Many plants and animals follow a continuous cycle of activities. They do the same things at the same time every month, season, or year. In science, the study of these timings is called phenology. But why does it matter?

Plants and animals have evolved to reproduce at times that give them the best chance of surviving.

Often this timing connects with what other plants and animals are doing. For example, pōhutukawa trees flower around November and December. At this time of year, bees are out collecting nectar and can pollinate the pōhutukawa flowers that make seeds. This ensures that there are new young trees to replace the old ones

when they die.

Similarly, tree wētā lay their eggs in autumn and

winter so that they hatch in spring. In spring, there are more seeds, fruit, and leaves available for the young

wētā to eat. In comparison, New Zealand long-tailed

bats hibernate over winter, which is when insects are

most scarce.

But how do plants and animals know when to start �a new activity? Normally, they take cues from their environment. They respond to things like how long the sun is in the sky, how cold the air is, or what phase the moon is in. This means that even small changes in the climate can signal a plant or animal to do things earlier or later than before. And once one living creature changes their cycle, all the other plants and animals are affected.

Timing is everything

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Can you see the links between these plants and animals?

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Many Māori communities have a deep understanding of our country’s plant and animal cycles. Since arriving in Aotearoa more than five hundred years ago, Māori have observed these activities and linked them to the movements of the �sun, moon, and stars. They have used this knowledge to create the maramataka – the Māori calendar.

The Gregorian calendar that many people follow today was introduced to Aotearoa by Pākehā. It’s based on Earth’s movement around the sun, but it isn’t the only way to track time. Some Māori divide the maramataka into around twelve months. Each month is based on how long it takes the moon to travel around Earth.

Maramataka:

The Māori calendar

Since arriving in Aotearoa, Māori have associated different activities with different months. Can you work out what is happening in each illustration? If you get stuck, visit goo.gl/A1VAsD for help.

takurua

winter

kōanga

spring

Pipiri

May–June

Hongonui

June–July

Here-turi-kōkā

July–August

Mahuru

August–September

Whiringa-ā-nuku

September–October

Whiringa-ā-rangi

October–November

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The maramataka has long �been used by Māori communities as a guide for when to hunt, fish, plant, and harvest. Different iwi have their own versions of the maramataka. Some iwi would see Matariki rise in the sky and know that it was the right time to hunt animals like the kererū, which would be plump enough for eating. Others know that certain phases of the moon are good for catching pātiki because that’s when the fish come closest to the shore.

As well as the positions of �the moon and stars, Māori �also observed changes in the environment that affected different animals’ behaviour. Some iwi know that when pōhutukawa trees flower, the kina (sea urchin) have roe (eggs) that are fat and creamy. “There are multiple things linked in the maramataka,” says Pauline. “So it’s a great source of knowledge for finding out if something’s timing has changed.”

raumati

summer

ngahuru

autumn

Hakihea

November–December

Kohi-tātea

December–January

Hui-tanguru

January–February

Poutū-te-rangi

February–March

Paenga-whāwhā

March–April

Haratua

April–May

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Pauline and her team are visiting different iwi and hapū across New Zealand to record their stories. They want to capture information about plant and animal activities in the past – as well as any differences people have noticed in the present. “We’re asking whānau if they’ve noticed anything changing in places like forests over the last fifty years. Then we’re capturing this information using voice recorders and by writing it down,” Pauline says. “At the same time, we’re asking them what other things they’ve noticed, such as increased pollution. That will help us to confirm or rule out climate change as the cause.”

Observing the past

Pauline will then compare the stories and look for similarities. She’ll also check them against texts written after Europeans arrived in New Zealand to add more information to the stories. But she’s not favouring one form of information over another. “Just because something has been written down by one group of people, that doesn’t mean it’s more valuable than something that has been passed down orally by another group of people.”

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While mātauranga has traditionally been passed down orally, digital technology offers a new way of preserving this knowledge. Pauline and her team �are creating a map using a computer program to record the stories and connect them to a particular place �and time. “There’re lots of layers of information that we’re putting into the map. We’re recording the place the story is talking about, the plants or animals in the story, what they looked like, and

what the moon phases or star positions were at the time,” Pauline explains.

Using technology

The map will allow observations today to be compared with observations from the past – making it easier to connect events. For example, �if the pōhutukawa tree flowers but the kina roe �are not fat, then Pauline can check these events against other time markers in the computer program. Then she can narrow down which of

the two is occurring earlier or later than before.

The more stories that Pauline’s team can find to back up this observation, the stronger the evidence will be about the effects of climate change.

Tangaroa-�kiokio

Tamatea Āio

In ngahuru, longfin eels migrate to the sea. �The twenty-fifth night of the moon, Tangaroa-�kiokio, is a good night for taking eel.

On the twenty-first night of the moon, Tamatea Āio, crabs move out of the deeper water and sometimes sit on the dry rocks.

In raumati, when the pōhutukawa tree flowers, the kina roe are fat.

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Photographs: (top left) Copyright © John Stewart, used with permission; (top right)"Kokako" by Matt Binns from https://goo.gl/L9ZniS is licensed under CC BY 2.0; (middle left) “Sunset at Opotaka” by russellstreet from https://goo.gl/qSXK3j is licensed under CC BY 2.0; (middle) Copyright © Andy Murray, used with permission; (bottom left) "Tuatara.New Zealand." by Bernard Spragg. NZ from https://goo.gl/UMSsnB is in the public domain; (bottom right) "Orange pore fungus" by Bernard Spragg. NZ from https://goo.gl/rmyBhJ is in the public domain.

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Scientists know that climate change is �a threat to wildlife and ecosystems in Aotearoa. But there’s still a lot to learn about how individual plants and animals are responding. Pauline hopes that by engaging in mātauranga, scientists will have a greater understanding of the changes taking place. Only then can �we help our wildlife, and ourselves, to adapt. “If you don’t look and you don’t know that something is being affected, then you can’t help it,” says Pauline. “You’ve got to know about it to know what to do about it.”

Delivering help

climate change – when the average weather experienced in an area over a long period of time becomes different

ecosystems – communities of living things and their environments

indigenous people – the first people to live in an area

reproduce – produce offspring

Glossary

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All the text, images, and photographs in this article may be copied, distributed, displayed, and revised in all media by teachers and students. Please attribute the work to the writers, illustrators, and photographers, where appropriate.��Text copyright © Crown 2018

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