Community Outcomes

We focus on both producing research of academic excellence and ensuring its outcomes contribute to gains for the communities we work with. Some highlights include:

• In 2010, environmental land- and water-based research has continued to make up a strong theme in our research, underlining the importance of environmental issues to Māori and New Zealand as a whole and emphasising the role that traditional Māori knowledge can bring to Western methods to create new and innovative solutions.  For example, tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a lethal toxin that has recently appeared naturally in Hauraki Gulf sea-slugs. Initially, unexplained animal deaths led to increased media interest in their cause, and the toxin was identified as TTX. The source of TTX was the sea slug Pleurobranchaea maculata. This has major implications for local Māori and non-Māori around environmental sustainability and kaimoana, as well as wider implications for New Zealand ecology.  The Hauraki Māori Trust Board and Cawthron Institute are working together with support from Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga to collate mātauranga Māori on toxic events, and the relationship to kaimoana harvesting. Local marae are involved in sampling kaimoana for TTX content analysis, and the results will be used to develop ways of minimising risk to Māori communities; these will then be shared with marae from the area.
• The research project Bring ‘Me’ Beyond Vulnerability: Elderly Care of Māori, by Māori (Kei hinga au e, kei mate au e: Te Tīaki a te Māori i te hunga kaumātua Māori) led by Dr Mere Kepa identified significant shortcomings in healthcare services for elderly Māori outside urban areas and made recommendations that have been promptly taken up by government agencies and District Health Boards.
• A new model for integrating approaches to youth wellbeing, Amplifying youth voices: Taitamariki speak back on growing up in Aotearoa, developed by Dr Sue Crengle, Dr Margaret Kempton, Dr Adreanne Ormond and Professor Linda Smith is being prepared as a resource for policy agencies, including the Teachers' Council, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Health and iwi organisations.
• A health assessment plan for the Ahuriri Estuary, He moemoeā mo Ahuriri: A vision plan and health assessment for the Ahuriri Estuary, led by Dr James Ataria of Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research supported a local vision for stewardship, as well as creating a new resource for the local Napier Girls’ High School.
• Research by Professor Russell Bishop Te Kotahitanga: Improving the educational achievement of Maori students in mainstream education – a longitudinal study of two schools was taken up and funded by the Ministry of Education for use in professional development courses for teachers.
• The research project Construction Workshops with Uku, led by Kepa Morgan and Rau Hoskins, focusing on early engagement of Māori in the uptake of a new building material that uses earth reinforced with flax fibre or muka. This is demonstrating real potential to meet a need for housing with a long design life at low cost. This research has been built on by another team as the basis for delivering an electronic educational resource in Te Reo Māori that is encouraging participation by more young Māori in the sciences and related careers.