Visions of a Sustainable World
by Pauline Tangiora
published in Choosing our Future: Visions of a Sustainable World, edited by Tanvi Nagpal and Camilla Foltz, World Resources Institute, 1995.
Pauline E. Tangiora’s Maori tribal affiliations are to Rongomaiwahine and Kahungunu. For over 40 years, she has worked extensively with both Maori and Pakeha peoples on issues of peace, justice, and women. As a tribal elder she has taken a leading role in Maori issues concerning environment, health, education, land rights, and foreign affairs. Presently, Mrs. Tangiora is a member of the Earth Council, the Maori Women’s Welfare League, and Rigoberta Menchu Turn’s Committee on Indigenous Initiatives for Peace. She is the Regional Women’s Representative for the World Council on Indigenous Peoples and is the Aotearoa/New Zealand co-president for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Mrs. Tangiora has represented Aotearoa at many international gatherings, including UNCED, the World Conference on Human Rights, and the U.N. Year of Indigenous Peoples. She has published papers and spoken in public both overseas and within Aotearoa on Maori perspectives on conflict resolution, mediation, and negotiation.
Introduction
Indigenous peoples do not see the word “sustainability” as the crux of the issue, but rather "coexistence." To coexist means for us a balance-harmony with the sky, earth, and the waters, each must be of equal importance for humankind.
When there is any kind of disharmony, people are hurt and so is the environment around them. With disharmony, there can never be sustainability. Watch people when they are angry (like athletes, for example). Notice how it affects their movement, the way they treat the space around them.
Indigenous peoples throughout the world have their stories of creation and survival; in these, one finds a deep-rooted spiritual significance, sanctity, and reverence for all things and for the place each thing has in society. Indigenous peoples have a responsibility to the future. The Earth is alive; because we coexist with it, we do not have the luxury of destroying it. Our people always have it morally stamped on them that there is life that comes after them. The preservation instinct is present in all people, but indigenous peoples live it. It is not a question of dedication because that would imply choice. For us, it’s not a choice. It’s a responsibility.
Vision
In my vision as a Maori woman of the Pacific Basin, governments of the world will acknowledge that indigenous peoples in this day and age still maintain a way of life that coexists harmoniously with nature. We will have dialogue with governments and other major role players: corporate multi / transnational companies, international financial institutions, all who have some role to play in executing projects that often hurt indigenous communities.
In Aotearoa, pesticides and chemicals used to preserve timber are beginning to leach into the earth. By 2050, the effects of nuclear testing in the lands of Aborigines in Australia in the 1950s and continued testing at Mururoa will be ended. Dumping of the world’s waste into the Pacific will stop.
Nature provides for itself. Windmills can generate power and are gentle on the environment. We will harness methane gases from the combustion of refuse from cities and towns.
Native timber will not be cleared to make room for exotic trees just because they can be harvested over a shorter period of time. Native timbers rejuvenate Mother Earth, provide habitat for insects, and create natural products that are used by indigenous peoples either for food or medicine.
Indigenous women throughout the Pacific still rely on native plants. These must not be exploited by laboratories to create synthetic products or biotechnology. Native plants have a place in spiritual ceremonies, and they have many other uses: as cleansers of both mind and soul, as clothing and utensils, and as decorative articles for the home or trade. In other words, what we have is bound up intrinsically with LIFE itself. This must be understood by governments and companies: you cannot expect to make profits at the expense of people whose needs coexist with nature, their food basket. In many instances, people rely on fishing, bartering, and exchanging fish for goods from inland and other tribal groups. Overfishing and the contamination (for example, by mercury from mining) of the sea and rivers must be stopped. Fish do not just happen. Irrespective of a country’s 200-mile limit, we need to harvest the sea’s riches responsibly—not to suit the demand of markets but to protect future harvesting. Aquaculture is one positive contribution of science to coastal peoples. But we must be vigilant so that imported fish or seafoods do not take over or kill off local species.
Water, the most precious of life’s commodities, is the cleanser for life, both in its practical and spiritual sense. So let us give thanks for the tears of life’s substance—water—without which we cannot live.
In 2050, we will be able to walk down to the beach and get something for our table and not have to worry if there will be any left next year, or if the waters will be polluted. The food produced will be enough for everyone there, with some left at the bottom of the pot for someone who comes by later.
In my vision for the year 2050, people care for each other. They show honor, truthfulness, and justice. People won’t give each other money, but rather loaves of bread. They won’t give a poor woman a new dress, but rather help her to remake an old one. That way, she has a part in creating something of her own. People are concerned about each other even when they fail and help each other out of tight spots. Respect has to be earned; it starts by respecting others. I have faith that we can change the community, but we have to give people a little leeway to get out of what they have done. We cannot go around calling each other thieves. For example, a while ago I returned from a trip to find that all of my plants had been taken from my house. I went to the local school newsletter and put in an advertisement that said: “to whoever borrowed my plants: after you have finished enjoying them, please return them to me.” Within a week, I came home again to find all my plants lined up on the sidewalk outside my house.
Attention must be paid to our youth. They are not going to be the future, they are the future. Today, when their voices are raised, they aren’t listened to. We must guard them against lack of respect, or else they will withdraw.
In my vision for the future, there are challenging discussions, because in that process we extend ourselves. Exchanging dialogue is how we mature as a people.
Conclusion
Much will be achieved by those indigenous peoples who have not succumbed to invasion or colonization. These peoples can move in two worlds. They see developments across generations, and therefore need to be eco-decision-makers together with governments. No more decisions will be made by a few and enacted by great numbers; instead, decision-makers will come down to talk to those who live and work at the “flax roots.” We do not need to be a sovereign state, but we need self determination over the policies affecting us and over the distribution and use of a share of the national funding.
One speaks of the people who still plant by the moon, fish by the tide, and generally plan by the equinox. Our vision for the year 2050 is one in which everyone respects the richness of our planet. Our vision is bound up with the work of those who continue to be the kaitiaki: guardians for the seven plus seven generations of the future. The day we release hope is the day that we die as a people. Please, will anyone listen? Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
