Transforming River Governance: The Co-Governance Arrangements in the Waikato and Waipaˉ Rivers

Abstract

AbstractAround the world, many societies are trying to create and apply apparatuses that recognise Indigenous interests in freshwater systems. Such policies and strategies often acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ rights and values they attached to specific waterways, and take the form of new legal agreements which are directed at reconciling diverse worldviews, values, and ways of life within particular environments. In this chapter we review one such arrangement: the co-governance arrangements between the Māori iwi (tribe) Ngāti Maniapoto and the New Zealand (Government) to co-govern and co-manage the Waipā River. We analysis where the new governance arrangements are enabling Ngāti Maniapoto to achieve environmental justice and find substantive faults most notably distributive inequities, lack of participatory parity, and inadequate recognition of Māori governance approaches.