Projects

The commercial fishing industry is a complex system, and one issue that can hamper the success of fishing companies is the inadvertent capture of fish that are not target species. Under the Quota Management System, if a company has limited quota for a non target-species then fishing for target species has to stop once the limited quota of a non-target species has been met.

Māori have used geothermal waters and materials for centuries, yet in contemporary times only a few iwi groups have developed their geothermal resources, even though geothermal energy has sustainable and renewable attributes. One barrier to development has been a clear pathway that incorporates kaitiakitanga responsibilities into the development process.
 

The Life and Living in Advanced Age; A Cohort Study in New Zealand (LILACSNZ): Te Puāwaitanga o Ngā Tapuwae Kia Ora Tonu is the first large-scale study of people in advanced age in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the only longitudinal study of people in advanced age that includes a large number of Māori people.

This research project’s origins date back 27 years when Dr Joe Te Rito helped establish local Māori radio station Radio Kahungunu at the Hawke’s Bay Polytechnic, Taradale. Joe saw how the dialect of his iwi Rongomaiwahine-Ngāti Kahungunu was diminishing in quality, in terms of grammatical and spoken fluency, with each generation. The station was to fill the gap for children who did not have Māori spoken in the home or role models to learn te reo from. While schools looked after education, the station wanted to bring the voices into the home.

Health promotion was traditionally delivered within a public health setting in New Zealand. With changes to primary care delivery, health promotion is increasingly delivered within the primary care setting due to national strategy changes aimed at improving health outcomes.

First a public servant in the Native Lands Purchase Department then later MP for Napier and Minister for Native Affairs, Sir Donald McLean (Makarini) was a major architect in the most formative period of our colonial history (c.1850–1880). His fluency in te reo Māori and his willingness to visit Māori in their own communities gained the respect of many rangatira of that time.

This research was carried out on behalf of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. The primary research aim was to find out how Māori individuals and whānau have been affected by problem gambling and the strategies they have taken to address this issue.
 

This project is developing a computer based bioengineered model of the human eye to give greater insight into eye disease and treatments. This will help patients and families better understand their eye and vision exams, and have improved clinical outcomes, says Jason.

This scoping project focussed on determining the Adélie penguin population's responses to climate change. It also successfully lifted the profile of Māori participation, contribution and leadership in the Antarctic research and science. This project was completed in 2008.

This research aimed to develop a Body Area Network using novel ideas from swarm intelligence and, in particular, Ant Colony Optimization.

This project set out to identify what might constitute effective leadership of educational reform that seeks to raise the achievement of students not currently well served by the system. The hypothesis was developed from a further examination of the relevant literature supported by a series of in-depth interviews, conducted in 2005 and 2006 with leaders in the twelve schools who have been participating in the Te Kotahitanga research and professional development project since 2003.
 

The research team for this project in collaboration with Ngāi Tūhoe have sought to actively engage tanagata whenua with all agencies that support building capability in management of wild populations of  Whio (Blue Duck). Whio is one of New Zealand’s national iconic wildlife species. Their presence within our rivers symbolises the completeness and health of our waterways. Whio are currently nationally threatened by predation from introduced predators, loss of habitat, and global climate change; they are not fully secured from extinction.
 

Historical trauma is a term commonly used by Native American researchers who have investigated the impact of past relationships between native populations and settler governments on current and future generations of Native Americans.

The premature birth of babies is a highly stressful and tense event for whānau. The care of such babies is focused within hospital based Neonatal Intensive Care Units.
 

Māori have voiced a range of concerns regarding the aerial application of 1080 bait and expressed the view that alternatives to 1080 are needed. One idea is that there may be toxins already present in plants in New Zealand's ecosystems that could perform well as alternative pest control tools.
 

We don’t have many Māori or Pacific Engineers and we need them. The University of Auckland’s Engineering degree programme is challenging and lists Level 3 Mathematics with Calculus as a compulsory prerequisite for consideration to enter.

The rise in cross-cultural marriages between Māori and other cultural groups in Aotearoa New Zealand has raised the issue of who decides where a deceased Māori person is to be buried, after they die, when his or her partner is not Māori.  There are several reported recent cases where whānau Māori have intervened to take a person back home for burial, often against the wishes of the surviving spouse and children.
 

The Ngāti Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau iwi places great significance on Te Kete Poutama, an area that encompasses Lake Rotoitipaku near Kawerau, because it has been integral to their economic, cultural, spiritual and social wellbeing for generations. Tasman Pulp and Paper, now Norske Skog Tasman Ltd., leased the area for dumping waste in 1971 and it became the primary disposal site for solid paper-mill waste. Now Lake Rotoitipaku no longer exists – it’s filled with more than 600,000m3 of toxic material. In 2013 the dumping will stop and the land will return to its trustees.

Māori are increasingly taking on environmental management roles (often on a voluntary basis) that juggle the responsibilities of both traditional networks and government regulations. The focus of this scoping project was to identify the barriers, obstacles and potential solutions to conducting research in the area of local customary fisheries from a flax roots level, that is the application and management of Mataitai and Taiapure by communities and marae.
 

Māori have expressed a desire to be involved in freshwater management in a way that reflects their values. This remains a challenge both for Māori communities and government agencies. Māori groups wanting to work with government on freshwater management often do not have the capacity to access the wide range of processes, structures and tools available to them.