Researchers Call for Parks to Reflect Aotearoa’s True Histories

Researchers from the University of Otago, Dr Robin Quigg (Ngāti Raukawa) and Els Russell (Ngāti Maru), have found that many parks and reserves in Aotearoa still reflect their colonial origins rather than Indigenous values.

Their study, published in Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, explores how public land management has historically supported the creation of settler nations while limiting Indigenous connections to whenua. In the Dunedin City Council area, for example, 75 percent of parks and reserves are named to honour “Tangata Tiriti” (treaty-settler) histories, while only 7 percent reflect the values or stories of the local iwi, Kāi Tahu Rūnaka.

The researchers point out that the Reserves Act 1977, which governs more than 10 000 reserves, does not explicitly uphold rights guaranteed under Te Tiriti o Waitangi such as tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and ōritetanga (equality). Instead, they say the Act often continues patterns of colonial land alienation, renaming of places, exclusion of Māori narratives, and European-style landscape design like straight rows of poplars beside sports grounds.

They argue that it is time for parks and reserves to genuinely reflect Māori relationshi

ps with land, history, and values. Restoring Māori land sovereignty, they suggest, may require separating ancestral lands from the Reserves Act.

The Parks Leaders Forum led the Waitangi Treaty Grounds wananga in February 2025 on case study presentations in honouring Ti Tiriti in this regard, and convened the 2014 international conference at Te Papa on ‘The Co-Governance and Co-Management of Parks’ with keynote speakers including The Late Tumu Te Heuheu Tūkino VIII, Sir Mark Solomon and Matt Te Pou. The Parks Leaders Forum continues various korero in how agencies and Tāngata Whenua are navigating ‘parks management’ where so many whenua and awa are at the centre of much larger issues than simply being termed or known as a ‘park’, which in itself is often a general name for an area or location of a greater past, values or significance not fully represented.

Parks and reserves need to better represent Māori – researcher | University of Otago https://share.google/s3m9NmB4VTz8WB0yW

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