Implementing bottom-up governance through granting legal rights to rivers: a case study of the Whanganui River, Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

In the context of water management, designing and implementing bottom-up governance regimes that are more sensitive to local knowledge and provide for the direct participation of local actors is of growing interest. Mechanisms that facilitate the successful devolution of authority to local actors remain a challenge, however. This article seeks to understand whether the ‘Rights of Nature’ approach could be a used as a mechanism for transferring decision-making responsibility to local actors. A case study of the Whanganui River, Aotearoa New Zealand, suggests that granting legal rights to nature does help foster more bottom-up governance by using the social norms, customs, traditions, beliefs, and values of individuals within the community to shape the decision-making framework. The analysis highlights the role that local beliefs and customs play in enabling the transfer of decision-making responsibility to lower levels of an institutional arrangement when implementing the ‘Rights of Nature’ approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Institutional Analysis and Development framework
• personhood
• Rights of Nature
• water

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Generally, the ‘Māori worldview’ can be viewed as a derivation of an indigenous body of knowledge which seeks to explain the origin of the universe and the connection between all things – both physical and metaphysical (Roberts et al. 1995). In saying that, it is important to note that implying there is a single Māori worldview is inaccurate (Marsden 2003). Instead the Māori worldview can be better understood as an integration of a distinctive Iwi’s culture, history, cosmology, customs, and language.

2 Section 9.6 of Ruruku Whakatupua – Te Mana o Te Awa Tupua (the settlement agreement) states: ‘The parties acknowledge that the position referred to in clause 9.5.2 may change in the future (including in the context of the freshwater policy review process referred to in clause 9.2) and this settlement does not preclude any such change’ (Office of Treaty Settlements 2014). The interviewees confirmed that the intention of this clause was to create opportunities for the guardians to take on more decision-making responsibility in the future.

3 Poteete and Ostrom (2004) note that in some cases there may be economies of scope, which might mean that it makes more sense for a large group that successfully organises to take of a wide variety of activities than to attempt to organise anew for each activity.