Mahuru Wilcox is a Māori scientist and researcher who supports iwi and hapū with their environmental aspirations. In this interview she talks to Lanae about how her love for the environment is imbedded in her whakapapa and how repo are “the essence of resilience”.
Mahuru Wilcox
Ko wai koe?
Ko Pūtauaki, Ko Mauao ngā maunga
Ko Ōhinemataroa, Ko Waikareao ngā awa
Ko Ngāti Awa, Ko Ngāti Ranginui ngā iwi
Ko Ngāti Pūkeko, Ko Ngāi Tamarāwaho ngā hapū
My whānau is from the East Coast - Whakatāne and Tauranga but I grew up in Wellington. My mum moved to Raglan when I was a child and we came here a lot for holidays and that's why I live here now. I love it! and my networks and whānau support is here. Through mum's work at Awanuiarangi and bringing us to AGMS we have been able to build a connection back home too.
I definitely want to spend more time at home, practising what I preach at mahi, which is it's all about reconnection.I'm not from here (Raglan) so it's quite an interesting space to be navigating. You know, connecting to a place when you’re rāwaho.
So many Māori are in the same waka, I find that a lot of people who are living outside their rohe find it easier to connect with the taiao and landscapes back at home first rather than their whānau and hapū.
Yeah, when you have had the experience that I’ve had which isn’t uncommon you’re seen as an expert but not an expert back home so just being really self aware of that. It takes a long time to build up those relationships at home with people living there. I would never go home and say I'm an expert. I am connected to that place through whakapapa but there are people already at home actively doing the mahi and they are the experts. When I come home, I can share my experiences on a broader scale.
Kauae Raro often talk to tamariki about their mātauranga around clay and soil, can you tell me about your childhood memories around soil, clay and/or the whenua?
Growing up in Wellington my experience was different from now to then. It was actually my Pakehā grandma that was a mean gardener, instead of buying us plastic toys she would take us to the garden centre and choose a pot and some plants and that was our activity for the day. It was about teaching us how to nurture and watch these plants grow. In an urban environment that was how I first connected to whenua in that way.
What a beautiful gift from a grandmother.
It was so cool! I felt empowered and connected through the whole process from seed/seedling to watching it grow into something beautiful, it was a powerful learning experience for me. I could really appreciate the process of the plants and nature. I really hold on to that memory.
I know that your dad was an outdoor person and your siblings too, can you tell me about that?
(Te Kawa is a taiao researcher, parakore advocate, photographer and Te Au o te Moana is a hunter, contract culler and has a course to teach wāhine to hunt).
We used to stay with our dad on the weekends where he got to do the fun stuff whereas mum had to do the weekly routine. He got to be the fun dad so he had the privilege to take us on holidays outdoors, tramping and trout fishing. He taught us how to identify different species of birds and plants. That was one of the reasons for my passion for te taiao but I also think just being Māori that is inherent if you have the opportunity. If you grow up in a city you don’t always have the privilege to get a taste of the beautiful environments that we are lucky to have in Aotearoa.
We were lucky because we lived on the coast of Wellington so we learnt how to dive. Also my grandmother was a botanist, she was one of the only women doing science in the 1940’s in Australia. She was actually a land girl, when all the men went to war the woman had to take over so she was running stations. She was quite unique and that influenced us to. And where my dad got a lot of his knowledge from.
Talking to mum now, she grew up in Whangaroa and her adoptive father was a game fisherman so she learnt lots about the moana. They had wild horses in the bush and no saddle, she grew up rural in an inaccessible area at the time so she also had knowledge but didn’t have the same opportunity to share that with us.
It's on both sides of your whakapapa but different perspectives. Your grandmother would have had a very science based knowledge around plants but your mum’s would have been because that's how they lived.
Yes totally, you can see how privilege forms your views and what you have access to. We had encouragement from both sides of the family. Mum’s an academic too.
I ended up going into the science area, I hated science at school but when I got to university and followed my friends down to Otago and looked at courses that seemed interesting and ended up going with a Bachelor of Science and Zoology and a Bachelor of Arts in physical anthropology then realised archaeology wasn’t for me and so I did a double major in Zoology and Ecology and my elective papers were all based around tikanga Māori.
Mahuru installing pekapeka detectors.
Mahuru and successful pest control .
As you mentioned you’re a Kairangahau Māori and a Scientist specifically in te taiao, could you tell me about the mahi you are involved in?
The cool thing about my job is that I get to be a part of lots of different projects. I get to have a taste of all these different disciplines within science all with a drive to support iwi and hapū aspirations for their taiao.
I was part of a project in Taranaki with the northern Taranaki iwi, it was looking at climate resilience tools and looking at environmental tohu for climate change. And creating something that would support their mātauranga and resilience in the climate change space.
Could you share about how Tara-Lee Manu (whenua artist) was involved and why you had her there? It probably isn’t super common in science to have an art response/report to research.
It definitely challenged me! I am so grateful for our iwi partners in that project who really questioned the tool development process and why you would monitor climate change and not wanting something that was monitoring for monitoring's sake. A lot of the tools available, both science and some of the more mātauranga Māori based tools are for monitoring but they wanted a motivator to get out into taiao and have a different purpose where you observe the environment. Not a list of environmental tohu where you go out on a walk and monitor those, it would fall over.
You need a purpose, like harvesting.
Yes, so there was this drive to revive and build upon knowledge around creating manu tukutuku. It became the tool in itself. You were able to visit environments that are heavily impacted by climate change events like repo. So then of course that's where Tara-Lee and Kauae Raro came in, is that erosion which is a major climate impact for many iwi but northern Taranaki where they have those amazing cliffs. Tara’s role was to provide a different approach to look at erosion and create an awareness. When you’re learning a new tool you suddenly become aware, for example I can’t stop looking at the raupo browning off and going ‘that's right for harvesting manu tukutuku” or “why is there so much pampas!” I'm looking for toetoe but all I can see is pampas so it brings your awareness to all these species and places that are impacted by climate change.
At the beginning of the project I had a different idea on how things would turn out so for things to take this different path and bring in toi Māori alongside science. I don’t know jack about toi māori so I had to bring in the experts and bring people in to share their knowledge and support this knowledge sharing process. The iwi are the experts in how they live and breathe their environment. My job is to weave all the bits together and keep a focus on what the iwi are trying to achieve. What I know is what’s out there in terms of information, data, people and potential processes and present ideas and see what works for the iwi.
That’s really cool. It’s all about collective knowledge and building the practise and mātauranga and your next Maori scientist!
The end game is to feel like you are not needed anymore. You know when you have done your job well if you are not needed!
We use soil, clay and stones to make paint like our tīpuna - we’ve found a rainbow at our feet. Have you had any colourful soils or stones make an appearance in your mahi?
Thanks to Kauae Raro mahi and others like Tara-lee, again it brought my awareness to something I didn’t have experience with beforehand. I’ve become one of those people that stop at road cuttings! I’ve got this tray under my boot with horse gear and bags of whenua and uku that I gather from the side of the road. When I'm down at the playground with my daughter there's a planted kauri tree that has a few cuts and drips so I'm there collecting gum while she’s playing. Matatu wants to make face paints and I'm like “we aren’t buying them we are going to make them ourselves” but she loves it! I’ll probably be super uncool when she gets to school but for now it’s something we do together and it's a tactile experience for her too. Learning the process of gathering, making and applying and letting her be free with it.
Mahuru and her daughter Matatū
Kauae raro are really interested in exploring the intersection of repo and whenua and the relationship between the two. Do you have mātauranga you would like to share around this?
It’s such a natural intersection because it's a continuum of land to water. When we think about what repo do and what they provide and the essence of repo.They really are the essence of resilience. They deal with so many things from both the land and both the water and constant fluctuation, change and adaptation. They are also not a loud and proud, out there environment. All the birds that live there are secretive and not these bright loud birds. They just get on with life. Repo are like that too, they just quietly do this incredible job that can’t be replicated outside of nature.
The way they cope with all these pressures from weather, land and waterways but manage to find harmony and balance amongst all of that.
They just get the job done. That's why I love them and am so fascinated with repo. We have all these charismatic megafauna like bright coloured big birds and whales that people think are so cool and then you talk about species like a mudfish that live in repo, people are like “it just looks like a brown stick” why would anyone care about them but if the repo dries up they bury themselves into the mud and survive, they are survivors! The repo are like that too, they hang on. As soon as you take the pressures away they will come back.
I fully respect Hine-te-repo for her incredible resilience to so many challenges, especially in the world we live in today. We know our people revered repo our tīpuna fought over them!
Are there any other gems you would like to share about repo?
One thing that really opened my mind was hearing whakaaro from Ruth Woodbury. She does a lot of work in Hokianga around manu tukutuku. She talked about the unique relationship Hine-te-repo has with Tawhirimatea. Tawhirimatea knocks over trees and whips up the sea but with repo, Tawhirimatea is needed to spread the seeds of the raupo, harakeke and toetoe. Tawhirimatea is an essential life giver to Hine-te-repo in some way.
Mudfish
Horu (biogenic iron) - Toreparu Hūrepo
Here is a video of Mahuru talking about her mahi with Manaaki Whenua.