Linkages between cultural and scientific indicators of river and stream health

Abstract

Scientific monitoring of river health is well established and has a significant role to play in environmental assessment by communities, managers and policy makers. Cultural indicators help to articulate cultural values, assess the state of the environment from a cultural perspective and assist with establishing a role for Māori in environmental monitoring. We reviewed the philosophies behind cultural and scientific monitoring of river health and compared the results from the two approaches at 25 sites in the Motueka and Riwaka catchments. Both scientific and cultural indicators suggested a decrease in river health in relation to increased land-use pressure. There were also correlations between the results from the two approaches suggesting cultural indicators could be used in a similar manner as scientific indicators to set environmental benchmarks. Using scientific approaches alongside culturally based monitoring provides a wealth of knowledge to understand better what we mean by river health. The two approaches can be regarded as complementary and reflect two different knowledge systems and perspectives.

Keywords:

• Cultural health index
• Māori
• resource management
• ecosystem health
• mauri

Acknowledgements

This work was funded in the FRST programme Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) Programme, Motueka (C09X0305). We wish to thank all members of Tiakina Te Taiao Ltd for their knowledge, participation and providing indicator information used in this paper. We particularly appreciate the input of the cultural health and scientific health monitoring teams including Christine Hemi, Hayden Henry, Daren Horne, Terry Hopa, Hori Kahukura, John Katene, Justin Kere, Pango Koopu, Mel McColgan, Mick Park, Pat Park, Moetu Stephens, Tommy Taylor, Karen Shearer, Rob Holmes and Aaron Quarterman. We also wish to thank Gail Tipa and Laurel Teirney for their early guidance and encouragement of the Cultural Health Index (CHI) methodology. Andrew Fenemor and other research members of the Integrated Catchment Management programme are acknowledged for their ongoing support of Māori research in ICM research.