Danny Paruru crouches at the water’s edge, letting it wash over his hand. Behind him, sharp peaks mark where the lands of his tribe, Te Whakatōhea, once stretched before they were forcibly taken by the crown. In front of him the surface of the estuary ripples.
“Thirty-odd years ago our kaumā–tua [elders] were realising that we were deemed to be landless people – that we didn’t have a lot of land left, after the lands were confiscated. So they turned their eyes to the ocean,” he said. “Places around this area provided our sustenance and our survival, over many generations.”
That ocean, too, is changing. On this shoreline, the tribe still digs for pipi, a native clam. But other food sources, such as cockles and mussels, have been shrinking or…
