Show Notes
Work is underway across Aotearoa to quantify the costs of climate change, including the costs of adaptation or of failure to adapt. But how do we understand “cost” and will our economic paradigm really lead to effective climate adaptation? If we can’t or don’t quantify/consider some costs of climate change (and benefits of adaptation!), how can we ensure these are factored in our adaptation decisions? On the one hand, we need frameworks and tools that help us analyse our adaptation decisions (and indecisions). On the other, we need to consider the paradigm driving our current thinking, and the limits of current economic tools and frameworks to help us make collectively oriented, intergenerational decisions. Are we capable of making decisions that return to Papa and Rangi value greater than what we have taken?
More from Ko Papa Ko Rangi: Ahi Kaa
In this final episode, Indigenous researchers from around Aotearoa gather around the home fires at Pikitū in Waikato to share their experience, knowledge, wisdom and strategies for action. With poetry and deep knowing as opposed to “hope”, we reveal how the dreams of ancestors will soon become reality, as the changing climate forces us to reclaim the past in order to thrive in the future.
Healing from colonisation is a journey of recovery, and it begins with falling in love with home again. In this episode, we travel down the Whanganui river to meet the youngest generation of Indigenous scientists returning to their ancestral lands to keep the home fires burning. It’s not just about going along and planting some trees. It’s about being prepared to defend that place, right through to the end of your life.
In 2023, Aotearoa was hit by not one, but two devastating cyclones within weeks of each other. The debris choked waterways and smothered the beaches, leading those who have lived on the land for generations to ask why. We follow the trail of destruction in Te Tairāwhiti back through decades of environmentally disastrous land-use decisions, in a race against time to prepare for future events. What’s it going to take to clean up the mess of colonisation, and how can those who keep the home fires burning transition to a "new" old way of life that benefits both land and people?
When excavators arrived to break ground on ancestral lands at Ihumaatao in 2019, they were met with unwavering but peaceful defence from the people who had lived there continuously for more than 800 years. The call to stand with ahi kaa in the protection of the land ignited the whole nation. But 2019 was just a speck on the history of all that has happened at Ihumaatao. What’s the connection between colonialism and climate change, and how does the story of climate adaptation change when those keeping the home fires burning are telling it?
What does it take to keep the home fires burning in Aotearoa, and why is the term “land back” synonymous internationally with climate action? Brought to you by Te Kōmata o Te Tonga and The Spinoff, Nadine Hura and Ruia Aperahama talk to Ahi Kaa about how they’re preparing for climate change, and why Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the most powerful tool to advocate for protection for Papatūānuku and Ranginui.