People search for meaning in place, especially in places they know well,
where they live and work. The meaning develops over time and over generations
as emotional attachments grow and as knowledge and understanding of
the rhythms and processes of the place are learnt, as memories are enriched.
Over time special places develop a history of the events and lives that
went before, these stories being passed to successive generations and
becoming part of the patina of the place’s meaning. This allows
people to live on in the physical place through stories until the places
themselves and the names that represent them become, as Sidney Moko
Mead put it when talking of Maori (1984: 20),
“…a
cultural grid over the land which provides meaning, order and stability
to human existence. Without the fixed grid of named features we would
be total strangers on the land ~ lost souls with nowhere to attach
ourselves.” 5
In
dealing with change in any place, landscape architects have a responsibility
not only to understand and interpret the visual and physical patterns
and processes of the site but also to learn about what the landscape
means and to acknowledge this through design. However, this is not an
easy matter and is increasingly growing more difficult as time passes,
and the issues of how to acknowledge culture and whose culture to acknowledge
converge. Growing numeric and political stature among indigenous populations,
notably in Aotearoa/New Zealand and to a lesser extent in Australia,
is generating a growing demand and a critical imperative for design
that acknowledges indigenous cultural values and needs. However, while
there are points in common, these values, needs and meanings frequently
differ from those of post-colonial settler society and in some instances
their values are diametrically opposed.
The landscape is
visible, frequently culturally shared, and often the focus of competing
values, meanings and goals, potentially putting the landscape architect
in the forefront when it comes to resolving such issues. Landscape architects
involved in such projects therefore have a role that probably requires
knowledge of more than one set of cultural values and more than one
set of cultural meanings, as well as requiring the ability to balance
and express competing and divergent perspectives within the same landscape.
The objective of
this paper is to consider how different cultural meanings can be taken
into account in landscape planning and site design. This is discussed
primarily through a series of Aotearoa/New Zealand-based case studies,
although the cross-Tasman location of the sites and their cultures does
not alter the potentially broader application that the points raised
may have. The paper begins by highlighting the opportunities for cultural
discord through two key examples. It then discusses ways in which Maori
meaning has been accommodated in site planning and land management,
and the potential of site design to express cultural narrative in the
way it is structured and designed. The paper then closed by drawing
out some of the issues highlighted in the examples.
The paper is not
about techniques, it is not a ‘how to do it’; rather, it
is saying ‘it can be done’. The paper highlights not just
the issues, but also the opportunities to create landscapes that acknowledge
wider sets of cultural meanings and, as a result, are richer, more enjoyable,
more inclusive and more specific to their cultural contexts within a
world that is all too often placelessly global.
2. THE
CHALLENGE
How
many of us here know about our ancestry, our genealogy, back beyond
the last four generations? For many 19th European century settlers in
New Zealand that knowledge was gladly forgotten, shed like a threadbare
smelly coat after the journey to the new land. It is reasonable to assume
that it was the same for settlers in Australia. How many then can imagine
what it would be like not only to know and be able to recite your genealogy
back many generations, as treasured knowledge, but also to know that
your ancestry is linked to the nearby mountain? You are descended from
that mountain and as an ancestor, the mountain is to be respected and
protected. He, or she, is part of you. Can you even imagine that situation?
You co-exist with an extended family some of whom are of the land itself.
Of course you could never ‘own’ your local landscape features.
We would not sell our grandmother, would we? She is always there, as
a guardian, nurturing us. While time has moved on and legal systems
have been imposed, the belief endures in Maori that tribal landscape
features, special places, are part of their identity and ancestry. 6
The
ancestor of Tainui, the people of the Waikato in the central North Island,
is Pirongia, a forest clad mountain, rising from the rolling pastures
that now surround him. Pirongia has watched over battles in the past
and provided a burial place for those who fell. He has supplied a food
basket from the forest, and spring water for those living nearby. Rich
farmland has been developed around the mountain and tree clearing for
further dairying land is creeping up the flanks of Pirongia, but much
of the remaining forest cover is protected as a reserve. The area surrounding
the mountain is farmed and lived in by Maori and Pakeha. Many Maori
have strong spiritual connections to these landscapes, stemming from
over 65 generations of physical and metaphysical association with these
lands. However, many of the Pakeha are the second, third, fourth or
even fifth generation to have farmed the land and they too have strong
emotional ties to the rolling, verdant landscape with its mountain backdrop.
Maori and Pakeha enjoy the visual contribution provided by Pirongia
and its role as an enjoyable recreational and wildlife resource. Like
many of the landscapes and issues touched on in this paper, the landscapes
of Pirongia are vested with different meanings for the Maori and Pakeha
associated with it, although some values are also shared by both groups.
This
was the situation several years ago when farmers heard that a major
transmission line was due to be routed through their area. The electricity
department had undertaken surveys along the proposed route. They had
found high concern among local people about the proposal for the Pirongia
section. Instead of reconsidering the overall plan, or moving it to
the service corridor already created some 300 kilometres to the east,
they started at either end, extending pincers towards the mountain,
planning to link the two parts of the line. In their minds there were
two good options: one side of the mountain or the other. The line crept
inexorably towards the mountain as local farmers protested wherever
they could. They realized that if they could persuade decision-makers
to move the line to their neighbour’s property on the far side
of the mountain from them, it would not go through their property or
impede their view. Resentment started to develop as factions formed
and each group was seen to be negotiating to foist the line onto others.
Two farming groups who had played cricket each New Year cancelled their
game: the bitterness was so strong that that they could not speak to
each other. A consultant group was appointed to review the Environmental
Impact Report and letters, submissions and deputations were read and
heard. All submitters, it appeared, felt some spirit, or sense of place
linked to the mountain. They did not want to see their mountain through
a necklace (or garrotte) of a transmission line. A most poignant letter
was from a tribal elder who explained his ancestral link to the mountain:
“If
the transmission line slices between us and the mountain, our tribe
will be severed from our genealogy, our ancestor, our past,”
he explained. “If our past is cut off, our people will have
no future.”
The
transmission line was eventually routed through farmland at the base
of the mountain, partly hidden by hills and valleys, but yes, it does
cut between the tribe and the mountain. This is just one example of
land and development where conflicting and different views of place
are held, and where economic and cultural values do not align.
3. NEW LEGISLATION:
PEOPLE AND PLACE VALUES
Since
the Pirongia conflict, legislation has changed and the Resource Management
Act (1991) (the RMA), is now in force. The purpose of the RMA is sustainable
management. The word management rather than the word development
was carefully chosen and means managing the use, development and protection
of natural and physical resources in a way or at a rate which enables
people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural
wellbeing and for their health and safety...7
The Act is effects based. Decision makers are required to anticipate
the effects of a proposal, to take a range of specified matters into
account and in assessing a matter overall, to decide whether it will
promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.
Cultural issues and people’s values are integral to the legislation,
which has been termed ‘values based.’8
The RMA is also enabling legislation, as opposed to being proscriptive.
It emphasises and provides for widespread community participation in
the planning and decision making process.
The
Act lists a number of matters that are to be recognised and provided
for as matters of national importance. These include9
the preservation of the natural character of the coastal environment,
wetlands and other areas, and the protection of outstanding features
and landscapes, from inappropriate subdivision, use and development.
The relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with their
ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu and other taonga are also
listed as matters of national importance. Other matters which decision-makers
shall have particular regard to (as opposed to recognise and provide
for) include kaitiakitanga or the ethic of stewardship, the maintenance
and enhancement of amenity values and the recognition and protection
of the heritage values of ... places.10
In addition, decision makers are to take into account the principles
of the Treaty of Waitangi.11
Such principles include that of mutual cooperation, openness and frankness,
and may involve the need for the officer advising the local authority
to consult with the tangata whenua (the local Maori). Amenity values
and aesthetic and cultural conditions are also captured in the definition
of environment in the Act. Territorial and regional authorities
administer this legislation, and resource management decisions may be
taken to the Environment Court, as may conflicts over local and regional
policy statements and plans.
Waahi
tapu is one aspect among the matters of national importance that requires
some explanation. The general translation (it is not defined in the
Act) means a sacred place and such places are known and their stories
passed on through generations. Waahi tapu may be sites of battles or
burial places of tribal leaders. Some sites are regarded as so sacred
that no one visits them so their appearance may be as a gorse-covered
hillside.12 Appearance is not
as important for these sites as the special spiritual significance.
In
addition, there are other special spiritual sites protected by other
methods, such as the topuni, which is a symbol of protection of values,
and is a traditional device for protecting special sites. They may be
landscape features such as Aoraki (Mt Cook), Kura Tawhiti (Castle Rock)
and Ripapa Island (an ancient fortified occupation site and site of
a battle): all sites that have been recognised and protected as part
of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Ngai Tahu tribe.
The
RMA affects how landscape architects and others assess, plan and design
for landscape and people. Whereas landscape was previously regarded
by many as restricted to visual matters and scenery, now cultural landscape
and the spiritual aspects of place are to be recognised and provided
for. However, this does not necessarily mean that private property rights,
and aesthetic, heritage and cultural values will align.
4. FURTHER CONFLICTS
Conflicts
in values have now become more explicit and the bases of cultural values
are being raised with more confidence. Here is another example. Mt Ruapehu
and the surrounding land was gifted to the Government by the Tuwharetoa
people over 100 years ago, to be protected as the first national park
in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Ruapehu is an active volcano, not only periodically
expelling lava and ash, which it did most recently in 1995, but also
occasionally expelling liquefied rivers of ash and mud known as lahars,
which are devastatingly fast and can do considerable damage. In 1953
for example, in an event known as the Tangiwai Disaster, a lahar from
Ruapehu swept a rail bridge away causing the night train from Auckland
to derail killing 151 people. The state road company was concerned that
another lahar may be impending, and proposed to bulldoze and blast a
hole in the side of the crater to expel water and other material in
a ‘safe’ direction. Ruapehu, though, is a revered ancestor
of the Tuwharetoa and the notion of blasting his head, the most sacred
part, was received with horror. The engineers of the road company saw
the proposed solution as logical, workable and a necessary safety measure.
The RMA includes enabling people and communities to provide for their
health and safety in the definition of sustainable management, thus
providing for safety, so this could be regarded as the responsibility
of land managers. Something ‘had’ to be done, they argued.
They did not accept that a metaphysical entity should prevent people
driving along the state highway in safety. Conservationists held concerns
as well because this mountain is a scenic attraction and a national
park. The escalating dispute was halted in its tracks by the Minister
of Conservation invoking the National Parks Act provisions and the road
engineers were required to find other means of protecting the security
of the driving public. The conflict between safety and the metaphysical
values of place did not need to be decided.
As
might be expected, the instances where culturally derived differences
in meaning lead to conflict over development are not restricted to ancestral
mountains, and embrace a far wider range of landscape features, sites
of association and entities aside from ancestors. Maori have taken other
cases to the Environment Court, generally not over issues of visual
impact on scenery or pristine places. In fact the unique pristine sites
often have less significance to Maori because they may have no history
associated with them. They were not lived in. It is the populated areas
where the concerns abound.
Not
surprisingly, people undertaking development today often favour places
used by Maori of the past because they are warm and fertile. These places
generally have modified landscapes and a variety of development. But
they are also often landscapes that are rich in memories and meanings:
in tales of battles fought, blood that was shed and heroic deeds performed.
Ridges and valleys have their particular memories and are treasured.
Some of these places are considered particularly special because a key
event took place - the landing of a migration canoe from the Cook Islands,
estuaries and fishing rivers that are a valued source of food, the life
giving qualities of water. In other words the land is not only given
meaning by the broad mesh of placenames that sew it together, but is
also meaningful at a more detailed level, describing a finer mesh of
places where the past happened. This is not however a simple veneration
for the past, for in these sites the past lives on and is the present.
Owners
often greet with denial the revelation or identification of a sacred
place that should not be modified by bulldozers. They hold expectations
that they can legitimately proceed with development, in accordance with
regional and territorial government policies and plans. Suspicion and
antagonism is often the offspring, as well as expensive litigation.
The stories of treasures and burials kept within tribes and families
to protect the places and now therefore being raised more widely as
land development proposals are put forward for approval. Remembered
burials have spurred local tribal groups to contest housing and similar
development. Maori have also contested development as diverse as landfills,
drilling for oil and gas, sewage treatment and disposal, water use,
marinas and waterway development, and quarrying.13
The disputes are rarely simple: there are often opposing views from
other local tribes, and local and regional government have views as
well. The ‘mental’ landscapes and their stories have been
told in different ways, or remembered by different groups, according
to their personal and tribal significance. Dealing with these issues
can, for both Maori and Pakeha, be frustrating, time consuming and expensive.14
In the face of such conflicts decision makers have often permitted development
to proceed.
You
might suppose that with pleas being ignored Maori might acquiesce -
give up expressing their concerns for the land. Capacity to take up
RMA issues has been extremely stretched and the sheer technical complexity
and resources needed have often confounded Maori.15
Instead the protests and concerns have continued and become (perhaps)
more vociferous. They are not in isolation: much effort is going into
land claims being conducted with Government concerning historic injustices.
Some objections raised are clearly associated with feelings of alienation,
anger and poverty. In one sense it may be seen as a way of ‘balancing’
or ‘having a go at authority.’16
However, it is clearly also a significant manifestation by Maori of
a determination to retain their cultural values and a rediscovered confidence
that, as Tipene O’Regan challengingly put it:
[As
a Maori he has a]…sense of belonging, the sense that Aotearoa
and wider Polynesia are ‘ours’, the sense that we belong
here in a different way from Pakeha people…We belong here as no
other people can belong, however attached and rooted they may become.
Their culture however well transplanted is rooted elsewhere. Their language,
their beliefs, their traditions spring from other lands and can survive
there. These other lands are the natural habitat of their cultures.
Aotearoa, though, is the natural habitat of Maori… 17
Whatever
their cause, instances of indigenous peoples and settler societies clashing
over development and the meanings ascribed to a landscape and its features,
are occurring more and more all over the world, including in Australia.
They result in strained or acrimonious relations between developer and
‘excluded’ community, and have often led to land occupations,
protest marches, court cases and general ill will. The challenge facing
landscape architects, planners, developers and, in the specifics of
this paper, Maori is to find ways to accommodate these divergent cultural
perspectives within the reality of at least some landscape change. Obviously
doing so would have the expedient advantage of making the ‘development
process’ faster, cheaper and less unpleasant for everyone involved
and obviously it would allow the parties concerned to have their needs
meet. At the same time, accommodating Maori and Pakeha meaning within
the landscape would make it a richer, more interesting and more meaningful
entity for all the communities associated with it. The multiple meanings
would contribute depth, locality and particularity to the site, helping
the rather inexact process of making a ‘site’ of its place.
Achieving
this is easier said than done. As is clear from the examples above the
meanings a landscape holds for Maori may not only be quite different
from those held by Pakeha, but in some instances they may also be manifest
not in physical but in metaphysical form. This may require landscape
architects to enter unknown and precarious realms such as understanding
the needs of a metaphysical entity, so that these meanings can be accommodated
in a design. In other instances, being allowed to express Maori narratives
and to make Maori meanings public can be culturally difficult –
putting aside the complexity of actually doing so. This said, there
have been some successes, and the remainder of the paper focuses on
these and on what they might mean for us as designers working in a world
where we are required to respond to the twin and competing pressures
of global and local, indigenous and settler.
