Te Urewera/Te Kawa
Te Manawa o te Ika
Te Urewera is Te Manawa o te Ika, the heart of the great fish of Māui.
Try “hunting permit”, “Great Walk huts”, “track closures”
Te Urewera/Te Kawa
Te Urewera is Te Manawa o te Ika, the heart of the great fish of Māui.
Te Urewera, first spoken by Murakareke, son of Tūhoe.
A heart is not scenery. It cannot be seen from the outside. It works without being watched, and everything else depends on it.
Te Manawa o te Ika describes Te Urewera as a living system. It names the parts that make up Te Urewera, the connections between them, and the responsibilities that follow for anyone living, working or spending time here. Seven principles carry that understanding.
the land herself. Not a surface to be used, but a body to which everything else belongs. Every other part rests on her.
the life force present in all things. Mauri can be strong or it can be diminished. The condition of Te Urewera is the condition of her mauri. That is what our work is measured against.
the standing every living thing holds in its own right. Tapu sets limits on human conduct. It is the reason some things are not ours to take, to enter, or to alter.
form and character. The way a place carries itself; the shape of a species, a ridge, a river. Āhua is how mauri becomes visible. When āhua changes, something beneath it has already changed.
order and lineage. Nothing here stands alone or arrives from nowhere. Tātai is the sequence and relationship that binds the parts into one system, and the memory of how they came to be.
kinship. The nahere, the wai, the birds, the people: relatives, not resources. Obligation follows kinship.
the people of this land. Tanata whenua are part of the system, not observers of it. Presence here carries duty.
“The natural and cultural heritage of the marae which is Te Urewera is the combination of her living parts.”
Understanding Te Urewera means understanding connection. The health of the nahere determines the wai. The wai sustains everything that lives. People change every part of it through the choices they make: what is taken, what is left, where we walk, what we carry in with us. Nothing done here is done in isolation. Consequence travels.
Te Manawa o te Ika is a way of seeing the whole. It is also a test. Any decision made in Te Urewera can be put against the seven: does this strengthen Papatūānuku, mauri, tapu, āhua, tātai, whānau and the standing of tanata whenua, or does it cost them?
Te Urewera is not a property to be managed. She is a relative whose wellbeing we answer for.