Why indigenous relationships with water matter

Finish New Zealand: We are water

Video by National Geographic CreativeWorks

“As a Wahine Maori, a Maori woman, my relationship with water is deep. Our creation story pays homage to water. I can trace my lineage back to when I was water. And so we honour that connection and that’s why we often say Ko Wai Mātou. We are water.”

Tina Ngata spends a lot of her time contemplating water. An environmental activist, researcher, and writer, Ngata lives in the remote East Cape of Te Ika-a-Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand. “The East Cape is a profoundly beautiful place to live, she says. “It has a dramatic, steep, rugged coastline, beautiful beaches, rich ancestral forests, trees that are hundreds of years old; we’re the first place in the world to see the sunrise each morning.”

But with remoteness comes a lack of infrastructure. “Our water supply is just what we can get from the sky and from the rivers. We don’t have a reticulated supply.” Everyone in the community of Matakaoa, where Ngata lives, relies on household tanks for their water supply, and some homes even run out of water a couple of times each year. “You never really know how fundamental water is to your existence until you have none,” says Ngata.

The idea of water shortages may seem counterintuitive in a country like New Zealand, where most urban areas enjoy annual rainfall of between 23 and 63 inches a year. But New Zealand’s freshwater resources are in dire straits as pollution, ailing infrastructure, over extraction, and— looming over it all—climate change, threaten to precipitate a full blown water crisis. While legislative efforts are underway to channel billions of dollars into fixing New Zealand’s water management issues, for Ngata, the challenge is more fundamental. “We need to heal our relationship with water,” she says. “From governments to corporations, communities to individuals, we need to work together to look after ourselves and look after the water.”

The Māori are not the only Indigenous community to see water as more than a mere commodity. From the First Nations of Canada to the Saami peoples of the far north, the hunter-gatherers of central Africa to the many tribes living in the Amazon, the beliefs and practices of Indigenous peoples around the world tend to reflect a sustainable relationship with water, which is regarded as a common good. In the modern world however, water tends to be treated as a resource to be extracted and, increasingly, a commodity to be exploited. As a result, many indigenous communities now lack access to a reliable clean water supply—including Ngata’s.

“Our rivers and our waterways that we depend upon and have lived with and looked after for countless generations are choked by silt and sediment,” says Ngata. “And it’s denying us access to water.” According to Ngata, this buildup of sediment—which she says can be seen from outer space—is a result of deforestation and land conversion exacerbated by cycles of drought and flash flooding in a changing climate. “The water doesn’t make it through the soil into those groundwater systems and aquifers the way it used to, it just runs off the surface like a deluge. In just one generation, our river systems here have become broader and shallower from the buildup of silt and sediment.”

Things are changing however in Matakaoa. Ngata explains that the community recently signed an agreement that devolves power and decision-making authority from central government to local people, giving residents greater legislative powers. “It means we have more autonomy and authority to care for [our] river systems and marine ecosystems,” she adds.

Beyond policy, Ngata believes that change needs to happen in people’s hearts and minds. “We need to heal our relationship with water at all levels,” she says. Some of these shifts in attitude can manifest themselves in practical changes of behavior too. The average New Zealander uses around 50 gallons (227 liters) of water per day, which is significantly higher than other areas around the world—people in Melbourne use an average of 35 gallons (159 liters), 31 gallons (144 liters) in London, and just 24 gallons (110 liters) in Denmark.

Water conservation is a complex issue, but we can all have an incremental impact with simple actions like checking for leaks in the home, turning off taps, taking shorter showers, and generally being more mindful about our everyday water usage. It’s a message that dishwasher detergent manufacturer Finish is keen to spread as part of its global advocacy for better water conservation. As well as supporting water conservation projects around the world, Finish’s Skip The Rinse campaign encourages consumers to save water through simple actions, including skipping the rinse before loading their dishwashers.

Reckitt’s Head of Brand and Trade Marketing, Rachel Bainbridge, says: “Here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we’re surrounded by water. However, it’s concerning to see that New Zealanders are using, on average, nearly five times the amount of water required to cover basic needs. Finish, both locally and globally, is committed to educating about ways to help Finish Water Waste, by raising awareness of water scarcity and inspiring smarter water use. For example, by skipping the pre-rinse, you could save up to 40 liters (9 gallons) of water per load.* It’s small adjustments like these that actually save you time that can make a huge impact overall.”

“You know, water is the great connector. It softens edges and it allows things to meld together and to join together,” says Ngata. “And that’s what we all need to do—we need to connect, we need to work together, and we can do that as governments, we can do that as organizations, we can do that as companies, and we can do that as communities. Then the way that we treat water will change.”

*Based on average water consumption pre-rinsing 43 items, 100 people. INTERTEK 2019 (TURKEY); NZ TOLUNA STUDY 2022

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