Participatory processes and the evolution of environmental agendas in estuary restoration: the Maketū case

ABSTRACT

The article analyses participatory processes in estuary restoration in Maketū on the East Coast of the North Island to examine how evolving relational dynamics amongst key stakeholders and Māori led to the achievement of a collective environmental imaginary. The case, marked by a history of conflict over the diversion of the Kaituna River and resulting estuary degradation, led to a focussed period of community engagement between 2006 and 2009 which established a collective intention to restore the ecological health of the estuary. Ongoing community engagement has been a feature of restoration project design and implementation. In examining this case, we draw on the concept of imaginaries, referring to shared visions of desirable futures, to explore how ‘imaginaries of process’ and ‘imaginaries of outcome’ played out among a heterogeneous set of stakeholders and Indigenous actors. We undertake a discourse analysis of relevant documents and of interviews and focus groups with 25 participants to demonstrate how inclusive participatory processes were used as a technique to resolve estuary degradation, address historical grievance between Māori, the community and local authorities, and reset the governance and management relationships between these actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Estuary restoration
• participatory processes
• environmental imaginaries
• participatory imaginaries
• community engagement

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Naomi Simmonds and Pia Bennett, and members of the Maketū community, tangata whenua and other stakeholders who willingly shared insights and knowledge with the research team. This article comes out of a larger study on ‘Participatory processes for marine ecosystem restoration and management: The Maketū Estuary case’, funded by the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge [grant number IF1.3.1].