Tati Tati and Iwi sharing knowledge of the importance of water governance to health and wellbeing outcomes

There are a variety of Indigenous wellbeing frameworks developed in the Australian context, but none relate specifically to water as a cultural, economic or political asset, nor emphasise the importance of water governance on health and wellbeing outcomes.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the 2017 Whanganui River Act endorsed and illustrated how Māori perceive their relationship to the natural world and gave greater agency for the river people to restore their ancestral river to good health. Also in Aotearoa, a Cultural Health Index tool has been developed by Maori people to facilitate the management of stream and river health. In both the Australian and Aotearoa contexts though, there is a lack of in-depth Indigenous-led research to develop bottom-up tools for assessing the relationship between health rivers and healthy people.

We aim to develop a research relationship and conversation about the environmental influences and determinants of First Nations health, wellbeing, and diversity.

This project focuses attention on rivers and waterways to explore from different Indigenous Knowledge perspectives how First Nations access, control and ownership of waterways contributes to health and wellbeing outcomes. This involves sharing experience from different Iwi perspectives about the significance of cultural water flows and applying Indigenous knowledge to describe and measure the significance of water for health and wellbeing.

The project will help to catalyse a conversation through an in-person workshop involving Iwi leaders, Māori researchers, Tati Tati Traditional Owners, and University of Melbourne researchers in the fields of geography and landscape design. This workshop will lay the groundwork for collaborative outputs and large funding applications.