{"id":30464,"date":"2020-03-06T00:05:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T08:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_news&p=30464"},"modified":"2020-03-05T20:08:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T04:08:14","slug":"maori-management-techniques-might-help-struggling-birds","status":"publish","type":"custom_news","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/news\/maori-management-techniques-might-help-struggling-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"M\u0101ori Management Techniques Might Help Struggling Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once a year, a group of M\u0101ori families used to moor their boats beside a steep, craggy island in New Zealand\u2019s Marlborough Sounds and clamber through thick scrub in search of the deep, earthy burrows of sooty shearwater seabirds they call t\u012bt\u012b<\/em>. \u201cYou\u2019d have to be really, really keen\u2014you\u2019d be on your hands and knees most of the way,\u201d says Glenice Paine, a member of one of those families. But it was worth it, she says: the fattened chicks people pulled out of those burrows were highly prized for their dark, oily meat.<\/p>\n

Paine has never experienced the t\u012bt\u012b harvest herself: it has been banned on the island of Motung\u0101rara, where her family traditionally harvested, for over 50 years. Now, a new study<\/a> by Paine and her colleagues suggests that restoring customary tribal rights to manage t\u012bt\u012b across the Marlborough Sounds area\u2014including harvesting them if numbers permit\u2014could play a critical role in ensuring the vulnerable birds\u2019 survival, while also preserving local traditions, knowledge, and relationships with the land.<\/p>\n

While there are some 20 million<\/a> sooty shearwaters spread between Chile and Australia, their global number is in decline and they are listed as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In Marlborough Sounds, at the north end of New Zealand\u2019s South Island, a small breeding population is scattered across a handful of uninhabited islands.<\/p>\n

In the face of declining bird numbers, poaching, and pests like the invasive Norway rat that likes to eat eggs and chicks, the national Department of Conservation (DOC) banned the t\u012bt\u012b harvest across the Marlborough Sounds in the 1960s and later began a pest eradication program. But these measures haven\u2019t worked for a host of reasons, including continued poaching, ongoing predation by pests, habitat loss, and changes to the environments on the birds\u2019 migration paths. Elders estimate there were 800 breeding pairs on Motung\u0101rara in 1960, while today there are around 100.<\/p>\n

In 2007, local M\u0101ori collaborated with the DOC to revive the small-scale harvest on nearby T\u012bt\u012b Island, which has about 1,300 breeding pairs. Since then, they\u2019ve successfully harvested a few birds each year without noticeably impacting the population. Now researchers are suggesting that restoring tribal management across the Marlborough Sounds might be beneficial.<\/p>\n

For many Indigenous communities, \u201ceating the species you\u2019re trying to protect is completely normal,\u201d says Amelia Geary, the study\u2019s lead author and a regional manager at the New Zealand-based conservation nonprofit Forest and Bird.<\/p>\n

For M\u0101ori, there is a strong cultural incentive to keep t\u012bt\u012b populations healthy: the bird is considered a delicacy. \u201cEven though they weren\u2019t a major food source, it\u2019s a taonga<\/em> [treasure] for us,\u201d says Paine. \u201cIf you\u2019re having some important occasion, it\u2019s just lovely to have those sorts of things on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditionally, t\u012bt\u012b harvesters took steps to ensure sustainability, says Geary, who interviewed eight local elders about their traditions. For example, tribal members would make a preliminary visit before the annual harvest time to assess bird numbers and determine how many chicks could be taken. They would also observe rules like only taking every other chick they found to disperse the harvest across the island, putting very small chicks back, and leaving burrows intact so nesting pairs would return the following year. \u201cSome years hardly any were taken,\u201d says Geary, \u201cand in other years they enjoyed a big feast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reinstating the small-scale harvest on T\u012bt\u012b Island has given tribe members a fresh opportunity to stay connected to the birds and their habitat, says Geary. \u201cThrough the process of harvest, they ensure the appropriate tikanga <\/em>[protocol] is followed,\u201d she says, while also noting any changes to the habitat or pest incursions.<\/p>\n

Henrik Moller, an ecologist who has studied traditional t\u012bt\u012b harvesting<\/a> on Stewart Island at New Zealand\u2019s southern tip, says harvest rights have motivated the local tribe to put a lot of effort into pest control. \u201cHarvesting is a huge part of their identity and connection to place,\u201d he says, \u201cand this spurs care for the wider ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restoring management rights to local M\u0101ori might also deter poaching by M\u0101ori and non-M\u0101ori alike as tribal authority may be respected more than the DOC, says Paine. In another New Zealand study<\/a>, researchers found that when a M\u0101ori tribe regained management of a native shrub, kiekie, the species began to recover as other tribes stopped overharvesting it.<\/p>\n

The new study confirms that on Motung\u0101rara, the t\u012bt\u012b population is, for now, not large enough to sustain even a very small harvest. But Paine says the group of families hopes to establish a collaborative management agreement with the DOC, similar to that on T\u012bt\u012b Island, so they can rekindle their relationship with the island and the birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once a year, a group of M\u0101ori families used to moor their boats beside a steep, craggy island in New Zealand\u2019s Marlborough Sounds and clamber through thick scrub in search of the deep, earthy burrows of sooty shearwater seabirds they <\/p>\n

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