The Moana Project launches from Ōpōtiki
The Moana Project had its official launch this month at Ōmarumutu marae near Ōpōtiki. The Moana Project will gather ocean data and explore how cross-cultural knowledge platforms enable us to better manage our oceans, and support and inform iwi interests. Whakatōhea iwi are at the heart of the project. One of their mokopuna and Victoria alumna is University of Waikato postdoctoral fellow Kimberley Maxwell, whose 'He Papa Moana' project explores these issues across the entire programme of 40+ researchers.
Te Kawa a Māui research, led by Ocean Mercier, is contributing to the question of how do our learnings with Whakatōhea inform other iwi interests. Helping to answer that question, Mere Takoko (Ngāti Porou) is the newest PhD recruit to the programme. Also involved (and pictured above) are Naomi Puketapu-Waite (Ngaruāhine and Ngāti Ruanui) and Fulbright student Octavius Jones. Student research profiles can be found on the Moana project website here https://www.moanaproject.org/students
The launch at Ōmarumutu marae on the 30th of July enabled researchers to ground their involvement in marae tikanga and Whakatōhea marine interests and to meet and get to know each other. This was followed by a 2-day science conference with presentations across the four project branches, including He Papa Moana. This was held at the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board precinct in Ōpōtiki.
The trans-disciplinary and cross-institutional research is led by Dr Moninya Roughan of MetOcean Solutions (a division of MetService) and is funded by an MBIE Endeavour grant through to 2023.