This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect
theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people's experiences
of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one
freshwater crisis - the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waipā
River- to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession
resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Māori iwi
(tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the
negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws,
governance and management approaches onto Māori and their ancestral
landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how
degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Māori seeking
to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga
(environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements
between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipā River,
highlight how Māori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable
freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous
environmental justice (IEJ).
The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity
of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or
decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its
applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of
changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that
characterise the Anthropocene.