🌿 Environment & Climate Policy

"Toitū te whenua, whatungarongaro te tangata – the land remains while people come and go."

🌏 Background

Aotearoa’s ecosystems are in crisis. Centuries of colonisation, extractive industries, and intensive agriculture have degraded waterways, deforested land, and pushed species to extinction. Climate change threatens our homes, food systems, and future generations — yet government responses remain slow, market-driven, and disconnected from Indigenous wisdom. Environmental governance has too often excluded iwi and hapū, despite Te Tiriti obligations and kaitiakitanga responsibilities.

🌺 Vision

We envision an Aotearoa where the environment is healed and protected through Indigenous leadership, collective stewardship, and intergenerational care. Climate justice means centring Māori sovereignty, restoring whenua, and ensuring that people and nature thrive together. Our economy must work in harmony with the living systems we depend on.

🎯 Objectives

• Transition to a regenerative, post-carbon economy.
• Return environmental governance to iwi and hapū.
• Recognise the rights of nature through legal personhood.
• Invest in food, transport, and housing systems that restore ecosystems — not deplete them.

📜 Policy Commitments

• Ban all oil and gas exploration, including offshore drilling and fracking.
• Invest in regenerative agriculture, reforestation, and ecological restoration led by iwi, hapū, and communities.
• Grant legal personhood to rivers, forests, and mountains, recognising whakapapa and intrinsic rights.
• Return governance of lands, waters, and taonga species to iwi and hapū under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
• Support community-led climate resilience in coastal, rural, and low-income areas.
• Invest in solar, electric rail, active transport, and local food systems to reduce emissions and build resilience.

🛠 Implementation Plan

• Enact the Aotearoa Climate Justice Act with binding emissions targets and Indigenous governance structures.
• Phase out fossil fuel subsidies and redirect funds to clean energy and Māori-led restoration.
• Establish a National Ecosystem Recovery Fund for wetlands, native forests, and biodiversity projects.
• Legislate legal personhood for key ecosystems (e.g. Taranaki Maunga, Waitākere Ranges) with mana whenua partnership.
• Create local climate hubs with resources, education, and support for sustainable living.

📆 Timeframe

Year 1–2:

• Ban new fossil fuel permits
• Launch legal personhood legislation
• Begin Crown land restoration to iwi and hapū

Year 3–5:

• Complete fossil fuel phase-out
• Scale regenerative agriculture nationwide
• Open 50+ community climate hubs

Year 6–10:

• Complete clean energy transition
• Restore 1 million hectares of native ecosystems
• Embed Indigenous-led climate governance across Aotearoa