Mongabay New Zealand
Tūhoe and Ngāti Whare elders trace 75 years of forest fruiting change
Knowledge recapCleared for publication
Elders of the Tūhoe Tuawhenua and Ngāti Whare iwi remember summers when the floors of the Te Urewera and Whirinaki forests, on New Zealand's North Island, were covered in fallen fruit. That is now rare. An Indigenous-led research team drew on mātauranga Māori to trace about 75 years of change. Between 2004 and 2018 it held five rounds of interviews and four knowledge verification workshops with 39 forest practitioners. They describe hotter, longer summers, fewer frosts, more storms and windier forests since the 1990s, with trees giving less fruit at less predictable times. The researchers link the lost fruitfall to slower soil life, thinner kererū and pigs, and te reo words for fruiting falling out of use. "We are depleting our library — and we're not regenerating that knowledge in the current generations." — Puke Tīmoti, study co-author
Why it matters
The study's co-authors say small shifts, such as when fruit ripens, can carry through to soils, food systems and culture. The article says most of the people interviewed have since died, so the knowledge recorded here is being lost.
Origins, evidence and credits
Original headline: Māori knowledge shows climate change domino effects on forest food chains
- Origins and holders
- The knowledge belongs to forest practitioners of the Tūhoe Tuawhenua and Ngāti Whare iwi, many of them aged over 60. The article says many of the interviews were in te reo Māori, often in the forest, and that elders now share it more widely than the grandparent-to-grandchild line it traditionally followed.
- What was checked
- The article says practitioners' accounts were checked in four knowledge verification workshops and that the climate shifts they report match wider New Zealand trends. The nitrogen comparison is described as the researchers' own estimate.
- Limits reported
- None stated in the source.
People and institutions credited
Elders and forest practitioners of the Tūhoe Tuawhenua and Ngāti Whare iwi (39 practitioners, not named); Puke Tīmoti (study co-author, Tūhoe; researcher at Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research); Ocean Mercier (Māori science researcher and physicist, Ngāti Porou; not involved in the study); Monica Evans (reporter, Mongabay); Latoya Abulu (editor, Mongabay). Study: Lyver, P. O'B., Carpenter, J. K., Wardle, D. A., Richardson, S. J., Tahi, B., Carson, D. B., & Timoti, P., "Māori practitioner knowledge indicates a shift in forest fruit biomass and phenology over 75 years", New Zealand Journal of Ecology, doi:10.20417/nzjecol.49.3622.