Help get our indigenous youth to the UN Climate Talks!

For the first time an indigenous youth delegation will be attending the UN Climate Talks from Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Our crew will be engaging in mahi both inside the conference and outside with the local campaigning organisations. The cost is our biggest barrier to getting to Germany so please chip in what you can and be a part of growing the indigenous youth climate movement in Aotearoa/ New Zealand.

We are a rōpū of rangatahi Māori and Pasifika who have been brought together by the need to protect and restore the mauri of our taiao, whenua and waters. Collectively, as tangata Pasifika we see a great importance in going on this journey together and stepping up to tautoko our whanaunga across te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

We will be working with the Indigenous Forum to lobby for meaningful indigenous engagement in climate action, participating in actions to stop the dirty fossil fuel industry in its tracks and connecting with organisations from around the world to grow our capacity to defend our communities and taiao back home.

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Who is in our team?

Te Rama Noah Pene

Born and raised in South Auckland, Noah Te Rama Thomas Pene is from a family of Māori activists whose activities extend the length of these islands. He is a staunch communist and active participant in local organising communities around decolonisation, racism, criminal injustice and climate change.

Having worked as a kaitiaki for the bird sanctuary on Mokoia Island with Ngāti Rangi Te Aorere and the South Auckland representative for the Morehu Youth Movement, he brings a great deal of insight and experience to Te Ara Whatu - attending COP23 as a member of the first indigenous youth delegation to leave the shores of Aotearoa.

His puppy, Cuddles, is also our unofficial 8th member of the delegation.

“I see it as a duty that young people must accept. I see climate change as an opportunity to utilize indigenous practices and reclaim cultural approaches towards living within a sustainable environment. It means standing up to big money and fighting capitalism where it exploits land for resources. I just want the future generations to have what my grandparents had: clean water; fresh air; healthy, natural food; and to understand the spiritual connection with mother earth."

Maia Ratana

Of Te Arawa, Nga Rauru Kiitahi and Ngāti Raukawa descent, Maia Ratana places great emphasis on the relationship between people and the environment. Having studied architecture alongside te reo and tikanga Māori, her passion lies in the strengthening of these relationships and connections by way of architectural development.

Her work and research is centred on sustainability, not just within the natural environment but also in the building industry with its new technologies. Ensuring better outcomes for future generations remains at the heart of her mahi.

“It scares me to think about the world that my children, my nieces and nephews will grow up in. I want my children to enjoy the things that I took for granted as a child like diving into fresh water and listening to a tui calling in a tree. For this to be a reality for them, things need to change now. The world needs to wake up and realise that without the land, we are nothing.”

Anonymous

From Si’umu, Falealili and Fa'asaleleaga, this member of our group works and organises anonymously, the safeguarding of indigenous reference and ritual lying at the heart of her activism. She freelances in film, utilising it in her organising to raise consciousness around violence in its many forms and manifestations. A first generation NZ-born child of the Dawn Raids, she joins a long line of Samoan women dedicated to the struggle for mana Māori motuhake and tino rangatiratanga.

Samoan people have endured a long, unique history of colonisation under Germany, America and New Zealand - from the first resistance movements against the militarisation and invasion of the Samoan islands, the established Mau Movement of the 1900s, the exile of Samoan resistance leaders, the mass migration of Pasifika to Niu Sila (followed by the Dawn Raids of the 70s) to the imposition of the Land & Titles Registration Act 2008.

Born and bred in South Auckland, understanding and making accessible the histories of indigenous peoples under capitalism and colonisation plays a key part in her community work - highlighting especially the many examples of native opposition and solidarity.

“When we, native to these islands, say that our lives depend on these lands and waters and the air that blows above it, we can barely promise the next generation that we will exist as indigenous people. I don’t know whether environmental groups ignore it or they just can’t fathom it, but we have nowhere else to go. When your entire framework is borne of settlership and your history is a timeline of settling on conquered lands, moving elsewhere is an option. We are not bonded to land the same way.

When we’re talking about communities whose entire life systems are formed in direct reference and relation to natural environment and circumstance, climate change and climate justice is a matter of survival. If we lose our lands, we lose ourselves, we lose our people. There are bonds that have connected us across generations, since we first came to be. To lose the environment that birthed us is to sever those connections forever. We might have a long history of interaction and exchange across these waters, but settlership has already harmed our people in ways we don’t always see. We use pretty words to make us feel better about our colonisation by romanticising the homeland and its people with the same colonial nostalgia of our oppressors. We tell ourselves we are the same, but this land is as foreign to me as mine is to you. Our tree of life grows coconuts and it doesn’t even grow in this soil.”

Katerina Mitchell

Repping Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Porou, Katerina comes to Te Ara Whatu with a BA in Political Science and International Relations under her belt. Working now for World Wide Fund for Nature - NZ in admin and support services, after a brief membership in Young Labour, Katerina was affected by how different ‘indigenous voices’ sounded to the rest of the conversation.

Katerina joins our team on the inside, covering negotiations and policy. She will also be attending the UNFCCC Conference during our time in Bonn with thanks to the Human Rights Foundation. In her work, she is committed to the safety and security of whānau and whenua. Twenty one nephews and nieces later, her first namesake was born just two months ago!

“For me, climate change is about livelihoods. We currently live in a world that is so accessible. That may not be the case in the future. I want to secure our environment for my whānau to live in and live from for many more generations. Being a part of negotiations that affect one of the biggest global issues of our time, it’s really important to me that indigenous peoples, being at the fore front of the effects of climate change, also get to be at the fore front of these discussions . Ultimately, I want to amplify indigenous voices at these negotiations. We hold a connection to our lands that means that we have a unique understanding to how our whenua responds to our actions. It’s no longer good enough to just be considered, it’s our time to take action.”

Hana Maihi

Raised in the heart of Ōrākei, with the biggest city on her doorstep, Hana Maihi belongs to a people who have long fought to protect indigenous connection to land. A protest that culminated in a 507-day occupation of their ancestral land, Bastion Point.

Her life and work is centred on the restoration and revitalisation of Te Ao Māori (The Maori World) by honoring and strengthening the relationship her people have shared and continue to share with Papatuanuku (Earth Mother).

Having worked in co-governance spaces (local government and tribal decision making), she has, with the guidance of her elders and her whanau, dedicated herself to the empowerment of communities and the nurturing of rāngatahi (young people) to fully realise their roles as kaitiaki (guardians).

“We are born with the responsibility of guardianship, to protect our sacred relationship with the natural world we have inherited. I stand on the shoulders of giants who have stood up for what matters when it counted. I believe Aotearoa needs to stand up and chart a bolder direction for our kids, one that has the wellbeing of our environment and our communities at its core over profit. Not just for our own livelihoods but for future generations to have clean water, food security and a strong relationship and connection to the land and our waters.

More than ever we need to develop a more intergenerational vision and shared decision making processes, bringing together those on the front lines of societal issues with those sitting at the decision making table, alongside indigenous and young people. What our generation decides to do today will determine the rest of humanity's future forever, let it be a good impact.”

Hana attended CoP22 in Marrakech with the Aotearoa Youth Leadership Institute, and is returning this year to channel her learnings into doing mahi with the Indigenous Forum.

India Logan-Riley

Hailing from the paradise that are the Heretaunga Plains in Te Matau a Maui (Hawkes Bay), India Miro Logan-Riley is one half of the organising committee for this delegation. Driven by kaupapa, the paths she walks are many, but they are all connected by a love for history, whakapapa and a commitment to indigenous tino rangatiratanga.

Having attended the last two COPs in Paris and Marrakesh, India has played a pivotal role in the formation of our rōpū. Earlier this year, supported by the New Zealand Youth Delegation, she reached out to young Māori and NZ-based Pasifika, determined to take NZ’s first indigenous youth delegation to the UN Climate Talks.

“The struggle for climate justice and the fight against the causes of climate change is an extension of the fight the indigenous communities have been in since the ego of colonial powers launched our globe into a violent and oppressive grab for resources hundreds of years ago.

This means that all three of my marae are under threat from a variety of impacts of the changing climate. It means that my younger sister is anxious about the fate of our whare in a future where sea level rise has become a certainty. It also means an incredible opportunity for a new generation of campaigners, community leaders, activists and allies to firmly set the waka towards a decolonised landscape fertile with all the seen and unseen aspects of Te Ao Māori"