Aquaculture settlement passes hurdle

The passing of the Commercial Aquaculture Settlement Act will allow a new chapter in Maori fisheries.

The $97 million settlement package passed on Wednesday covers Hauraki, Ngai Tahu and top of the South Island iwi.

Harry Mikaere from Hauraki says all that's left to do is signing the cheques.

His iwi already has a large investment in aquaculture, but the settlement will allow it to plan for the future.

“I really don't want our people caught up in the factories any more. We want them in the boardrooms. We want them in the sciences that this opportunity allows, and there is a whole range of other innovations coming through our industry that our people should be involved in,” Mr Mikaere says.

Maori aquaculturalists need to start looking for opportunities offshore, so they can offer customers year round supply of product.

DIABETES SUFFERERS MISS ANNUAL CHECKS

The Waitemata District Health Board is concerned too many Maori with diabetes are missing annual check ups.

The board has identified more than 1500 Maori in Waitakere and North Shore cities with diabetes, but the number seeing their GP regularly is below the Health Ministry's Get Checked programme target.

Public health physician Tom Robinson says Maori are twice as likely than Pakeha to have diabetes, and far more likely to get complications.

“Really strong evidence from international studies that people who have good care and achieve the targets associated with care round sugar control and blood pressure control are much less likely to have complications like heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, and are likely to live a lot longer,” Dr Robinson says.

Waitemata DHB is now chasing up GPs to get them to encourage patients to come in for checks.

ALTERNATIVE SPORTS ADD TO AWARDS EXCITEMENT

It's early in the sporting year, but competition is already heating up for the Maori sports awards.

Organiser Dick Garrett from Ngai Tuhoe says increased media coverage of the awards has encouraged more Maori sports people to identify themselves as worthy of recognition.

Many come from non-traditional sports, such as ocean swimmer Kane Radford, ice speed Olympian Blake Skellerup and soccer player Rory Fallon.

Mr Garrett says there's a big year ahead for Maori athletes, with the centenary of Maori rugby, rowing and soccer world cups to look forward to before the award ceremony in December.

MAORI GEOTHERMAL OWNERS SLEEPING ECONOMIC GIANTS

The head of one of the country's largest electricity generators says Maori trusts which own geothermal hot spots are the sleeping giants of the New Zealand economy.

Doug Heffernan says Mighty River Power has been developing Maori geothermal resources for more than a decade.

He says the trusts are increasingly looking to partner with the state owned enterprise, rather than just leasing their land.

“The economic growth that these Maori trusts have had in harnessing the geothermal resource below their land has transformed the interests of the land trust, hundreds of millions dollar business, way beyond what their ancestors would have thought of 50 years ago and in a lot of ways they have been the sleeping giant of success in New Zealand business, not only within Maoridom,” Mr Heffernan says.

Maori trusts are good to work with because they want to develop the resource in a way which is sustainable and benefits their people.

WAAKA ON THE HUNT FOR LOGS

Maori forest owners are being urged to break out of traditional channels and sell direct China.

Hemana Waaka and fellow Maori Rakau Trading director Bin Wang have identified trusts in the Hawkes Bay and the South Island with forests ready to harvest.

Mr Waaka says Maori landowners need to make the shift from leasing their land to forest companies to planting their own trees.

He says by replanting their own trees, their children and grandchildren will benefit not only from the harvest but from jobs along the way.

Mr Waaka says there are Chinese business people who are keen to trade directly with Maori and build up cultural as well as business relationships.

KURA TAPPED FOR REO TELEVISION TALENT

The head of programming for Maori Televison's Te Reo channel is promising more programmes from novice producers as more Maori make programmes that reflect their world.

The total immersion channel marks its second birthday this week.

Eruera Morgan says it's been a challenge to create a catalogue of programmes in te reo Maori, but shows like He Pari Karangaranga o te Motu, where Maori communities produce programmes about themselves, have pointed the way ahead.

The next step is to get kura kaupapa to provide programmes and tell their stories.

Eru Morgan says the audience for Te Reo Channel is growing as more Maori become fluent in te reo.

Customer insight needed for forest investment

The manager of Tuwharetoa's largest forestry businesses says Maori need to understand the needs of the global timber customer so they can know where best to invest.

George Asher says Lake Taupo Forest Trust and Lake Rotoaira Forest Trust have a policy of buying out leases as trees are harvested, so they have total ownership of the next crop.

The policy has also been adopted by the Central North Island forestry coalition, which Ngati Tuwharetoa is part of.

Mr Asher says Maori need to invest in other parts of the industry, and his preference would be to buy into the marketing and distribution end of the chain

“We want to understand what our customers want. Understanding that determines what sort of product creates the best value, what sort of trees are best suited to creating those products and that’s the sort of stuff we need to know before investing in any part of that value chain,” Mr Asher says.

TRUSTEES GET TIPS ON RUNNING MARAE BETTER

Marae trustees in the Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa will be given a crash course over the next few weeks on how they can do their jobs better.

Roger Arana, the Takitimu regional manager for Te Puni Kokiri, says the Internal Affairs-led marae planning and funding workshops will give trustees a chance to hear what agencies like Inland Revenue, the Fire Service, Historic Places Trust and the Maori Land Court have to offer them.

He says it's protection for kaitiaki.

“A lot of our people do things from their heart, he Maori tena, but there are also responsibilities that come from being a trustee and there’s liabilities for trustees too so you’ve really got to understand what that's all about,” Mr Arana says.

TAONGA COLLECTION ADRIFT FROM TALES OF LAND AND MANA

A former curator of Maori taonga at Auckland War Memorial Museum says treating the Oldman Collection as a single unit may help people identify where individual items came from.

The collection of Maori and Pacific Island artefacts was put together by William Oldman in England in the first half of last century.

The New Zealand Government bought it in 1948 and split it between museums in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, who have now agreed to coordinate guardianship.

Paul Tapsell says it's a significant collection with many fine objects, but the specific tribal or geographic origins of most of the pieces are unknown.

“A lot of these things were probably collected by early visitors, be they whalers or missionaries, early settlers, collecting them perhaps for aesthetic, curiosity reasons that had nothing to do with their ancestral connections to landscapes and expressions of mana. That korero is no longer available,” Professor Tapsell says.

There could be clues about some of the items in early writings by missionaries or travelers, or in tribal records, but it will require diligent research to track them back.

WHANAU ORA IN LINE WITH HEALTH SECTOR CHANGES

One of the architects of Whanau Ora says the new way of delivering services to Maori is consistent with other changes the Government is making in the health sector.

Lorna Dyall from Te Kupenga Hauora Maori in Auckland University's School of Population Health says rather than services being developed to suit health professionals, they are now being designed to give consumers and whanau what they want.

She says whanau ora also includes development, which is important for the wider society which is trying to grapple with the needs of an aging population.

“You can only look after an older population and a young population if you work as a whanau so actually helping skills in the whanau to be able to care for each other both now and plan for the future so it’s actually moving from just focusing on me, what’s important for me, to actually how do I contribute to a whanau because a whanau only exists if you all work together,” Dr Dyall says.

The whanau ora idea has upset some people because of the way Maori people make their culture explicit, but the principles can apply to any group.

KIDNEY TESTS COULD SAVE LATER ILLNESS

It"s Kidney Awareness Week, and Maori are being urged to get a check up which can pick up problems like undiagnosed diabetes.

Kelvin Lynn, the medical director of Kidney Health New Zealand, says the disease can be beaten if detected early through a simple test, but left undiagnosed it can lead to kidney failure and other conditions.

He says Maori are twice as likely to have diabetes than Pakeha, and community-based programes are the best way to detect it and treat it.

Professor Lynn says if people know they have diabetes, they can make the lifestyle changes which are the key to beating both diabetes and kidney failure.

FORM TWO STUDENTS SITTING NCEA LEVEL 1 MAORI

The principal of Titahi Bay North School says a group of year 8 language learners are inspiring younger students by sitting level 1 NCEA Maori before they head to High School.

Stephen Caldwell says Te Whanau o te Kakano reo immersion programme complements the mainstream teaching programmes at the school, which has a 75 percent Maori roll.

He says the teachers believe the second formers can pass level 1 NCEA Maori.

“The kids were needing to be extended. They were very fluent. We’re confident they can handle it. We’ve got four kids sitting it this year and we expect it to continue,” Mr Caldwell says.