Decolonising Blue Spaces in the Anthropocene

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people's experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waip River to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Mori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Mori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Mori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waip River, highlight how Mori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ).
The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene.

This is an open access book Traces how the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waipa River is linked to settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession of Indigenous Maori iwi (tribes) Highlights how Maori envision and enact more sustainable freshwater management and governance Explores how co-governance and co-management agreements between Maori iwi and the New Zealand Government can achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ)

Autorentext

Meg Parsons is senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand who specialises in historical geography and Indigenous peoples' experiences of environmental changes. Of Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage (Ng puhi, P keh , Lebanese), Parsons is a contributing author to IPCC's Sixth Assessment of Working Group II report and the author of 34 publications.
Karen Fisher (Ng ti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui, P keh ) is an associate professor in the School Environment, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a human geographer with research interests in environmental governance and the politics of resource use in freshwater and marine environments.
Roa Petra Crease (Ng ti Maniapoto, Filipino, P keh ) is an early career researcher who employs theorising from feminist political ecology to examine climate change adaptation for Indigenous and marginalised peoples. Recent publications explore theintersections of gender justice and climate justice in the Philippines, and m tuaranga M ori (knowledge) of flooding.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Environmental Justice and Indigenous Environmental Justice.- Chapter 3: 'The past is always in front of us': locating historical Mori waterscapes at the centre of discussions of current and future freshwater management.- Chapter 4: Remaking muddy blue spaces: histories of human-wetlands interactions in the Waip River and the creation of environmental injustices.- Chapter 5: A history of the settler-colonial freshwater impure-ment: water pollution and the creation of multiple environmental injustices along the Waip River.- Chapter 6: Legal and ontological pluralism: Recognising rivers as more-than-human entities.- Chapter 7: Transforming river governance: the co-governance arrangements in the Waikato and Waip Rivers.- Chapter 8 Co-management in theory and practice: co-managing the Waip River.-Chapter 9: Decolonising River Restoration: restoration as acts of healing and expression of rangatiratanga.- Chapter 10: Rethinking freshwater management in the context of climate change: planning for different times, climates, and generations.- Chapter 11: Conclusion: Spiralling forwards, backwards, and together to decolonise freshwater.