Rapua Rangahau | Search Our Research

Without Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand research on evolution hailed as a breakthrough by the world’s leading news media would never have happened. LIKE MANY A scientific race, it came down to the wire. When Dr Shane Wright, at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland, published new findings on the speed of evolution in top scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a rival team from Florida followed home just three weeks behind.

Now largely surrounded by downtown Napier, Te Whanganui-a-Orotū (the Ahuriri Estuary), has seen decades of agricultural, industrial, and urban activity that have transformed this once pristine cultural and food resource into a sink for environmental contaminants. Pushing the lagoon floor up two metres, the region’s 1931 earthquake only added to reclamation and pollution of food stocks.

Te Aho Tapu

What are the links between environmental integrity and the health, wellbeing and wealth of Indigenous communities?

Ensuring the sustainable management of our natural resources is increasingly becoming an issue of national and international concern, and understandably so.

For Māori artists, as any other, recognition overseas can be vital. While sculptor Dr Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura) and audio-visual artist Rachael Rākena (Kāi Tahu, Ngā Puhi) had already built a strong following at home, their success at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2007 was confirmation of Māori-inspired art’s international impact – and fulfilled a dream of exhibiting at a major world venue.

“We are taking a strengths-based approach. So that teachers can go from where they are now to where they want to be.” AS EVERY CHILD knows, learning to read means first cracking a code. The next challenge is reading to learn – when you move from just identifying the words to extracting deeper comprehension.

It never pays to underestimate the power of determination. When Patricia (Trish) Johnston (Ngaiterangi, Ngāti Pikiao) arrived to take up the position as Professor of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi she asked about basic research at the Wānanga and was told by one staff member it was something they didn’t do.