Engineering student Nona Taute (Te Arawa, Tainui) admits his PhD study traverses hot ground.

In investigating how Māori cultural values can be incorporated with Western approaches when developing geothermal resources, he acknowledged the Maori experience hadn’t always been positive.

His PhD, which seeks to develop an impact assessment method that acknowledges mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge), has involved recording geothermal history as part of the process.

“A lot of people... might have a version of this history and think it’s great and innovative, but other people see it as a source of generational trauma and a dividing force between Māori and non-Māori, so simply understanding that, what other people have experienced with regard to geothermal history, is a big step in the right direction.”

Taute presented his adaptations to the mauri model, a framework developed by Dr Kepa Morgan in 2006, to scientists and iwi leaders in Taupō as part of the first ever New Zealand Geothermal Week.

Kepa’s model has been used to assess the impact of the Rena restoration project, Rotorua’s proposed Eastern Arterial Motorway, a freshwater project in a village in Papua and the Te Ahi-o-Māui Partnership geothermal plant in Kawerau.

Taute’s version involved developing a comprehensive set of indicators of sustainability – including cultural indicators acknowledging Māori interests, and environmental, societal and economic – and considering their level of mauri (life force), represented by a scale at the top of which it is enhanced, while at the bottom it is denigrated.

Change over time can then be used to indicate the impact of a project.

A second part adjusted the value on each indicator based on the priority given to the four dimensions by stakeholders.

While it still needed compressing, Taute said the work meant his study had hopefully sped “up the impact assessment process for geothermal projects in the Taupō Volcanic Zone.”

Contact Energy tangata whenua relationships specialist Dominic Bowden said he hoped the scientists and contractors present came away with a better feel for what mauri meant.

“I found as tangata whenua I learnt something as well because there’s no real school you can attend to learn about mauri.”

In putting a number on a spiritual value though Taute said there was a danger in overlooking “the qualitative beauty and variable nature of Maori culture.”

“We are quantifying… extracting from it and essentially taking away a lot of the body of mātauranga Māori, so we have to ensure we preserve knowledge.”

This was where history came in.

“If we want to move forward properly we need to understand what happened in the past so that we can understand where we are now and the relationships between scientists, engineers and Māori.”

The central North Island geothermal history the project had compiled came mainly from a Māori perspective, he said. 

“It focuses on how historic legislation affected the rights of Māori, and the journeys by which some Māori organisations and hapū came to be in the places that they are now, whether that be good, like Tuaropaki, Ngāti Tūwharetoa or bad; we have some in Rotorua who have no control of the geothermal features just outside their marae...

“I believe everyone who has a role to play in our industry needs this kind of insight, simply to widen one's perspective.”

He admitted some pushback from people who expressed that Māori culture and the impact on it was theirs to interpret and for everyone else to respect.

“But for the most part I’ve received a lot of support from the people who acknowledge that given this clash between Māori and non-Māori in the history of our industry, that the only way to properly move forward and more efficiently integrate Māori knowledge into science and engineering is by meeting halfway and reinterpreting Māori knowledge in a way that science and engineering can also be interpreted.”

Bowden hoped Taute’s work could be integrated into Resource Management Act reform.

“It’s quite topical at the moment. So this is coming at the right time.”

Amplify (formerly Enterprise Great Lake Taupō) staged New Zealand Geothermal Week with the support of Contact Energy, GNS Science and MB Century, and industry partners NZ Geothermal Association and Women in Geothermal. The programme included industry workshops and seminars, field trips, a schools programme, and events for the public including an employment and career expo.

Credit: Stuff.co.nz