A natural shear-thickening water-soluble polymer from the fronds of the black tree fern, Cyathea medullaris: Influence of salt, pH and temperature

A water-soluble polymer was extracted from the fronds of the black tree fern (Cyathea medullaris or “Mamaku” in Māori) and characterized under various physico-chemical conditions. The rheological properties (in the semi-dilute region) and particle size and charge (in the dilute region) were investigated under various salt (0-1 M NaCl), pH (1-12) and temperature conditions (5-80 °C), using rheometry and dynamic light scattering techniques. A 7% (w/w) Mamaku crude extract showed strong shear-thickening properties at high salinity levels (1 M NaCl) and over the whole range of pH (1-12). However, the thickening properties disappeared above 50 °C. Apparent viscosity remained constant over the pH range 3-9, although the particle size systematically decreased with increasing pH. Overall, Mamaku solutions showed very good salt and pH resistance and exhibited strong temperature dependency. Hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions are not likely to be the cause of the shear-thickening phenomenon observed. Other forces such as hydrogen bonding may play a dominant role on the formation of shear-induced associations.     

Reconstructing spatial vulnerability to forest loss by fire in pre‐historic New Zealand

Aim Despite small and transient populations, early Māori transformed large areas of New Zealand's forest landscapes. We sought to isolate the biophysical predictors that explain forest loss in the pre‐historic (i.e. pre‐European) period in New Zealand. Location New Zealand. Methods We used resampled boosted regression trees to isolate the key predictors of forest loss from a suite of 19 topographic, climatic, soil‐related and archaeological predictors at a 1‐km spatial resolution across New Zealand. Results The key predictors of fire‐driven forest loss during New Zealand's pre‐history relate to moisture and elevation gradients, with sites characterized by low moisture levels and gentle slopes being most vulnerable. Proxies for human activity were important in the North Island, where Māori population densities were higher, but not the South Island. The predicted pattern of forest loss and its relationship with biophysical variables suggest that early Māori neither deliberately protected fire‐prone regions nor systematically burnt less fire‐prone ones. Main conclusions Before Māori settlement of New Zealand fire was naturally rare, despite biophysical conditions being conducive to fire spread. The introduction of an ignition source by humans made widespread forest loss inevitable, even in the absence of sustained and deliberate use of fire. Rapid forest loss at the time of human settlement is recurrent across eastern Polynesia, so understanding this dynamic in New Zealand has implications for the region as a whole.     

Ko Tāngonge Te Wai: Indigenous and Technical Data Come Together in Restoration Efforts

EcoHealth - In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori aspirations around land and water conflict with settler interests. As indigenous people, Māori struggle to enact agency over resources, despite...     

‘I Have Māori in Me’: Shades of Commitment and Negotiation of Subjectivity in an Aotearoa/New Zealand School

ABSTRACT

Based on ethnographic fieldwork (1997–1998) at a secondary school with a Māori?English bilingual unit in Aotearoa/New Zealand, this article examines two different ways students with Māori ancestry identified themselves contextually: those in the bilingual unit identified themselves mostly as being Māori, while those in mainstream classes identified themselves mostly as Pākehā (white New Zealander) but occasionally as being Pākehā but having Māori in them. Existing analytical frameworks, such as symbolic ethnicity (Gans 1999) or citizenship (Ong 2003), fail to capture the contextual and dialogic display of these different shades of identification practices. Applying the notion of commitment and its disavowal proposed by Doerr for this special issue (2013), this article analyses these two identification practices as a proactive commitment and a hedging commitment linked to institutional belonging to the bilingual unit and mainstream classes, respectively, and to the wider cultural politics of the official yet tokenistic biculturalism of Aotearoa/New Zealand.     

Biotechnology: the language of multiple views in Māori communities

In Aotearoa (New Zealand), the government funded studies on communicating biotechnology to different sectors in the community from 2003 to 2006. Subsequently, a researcher covering the Māori sector performed a content analysis of data gathered in the community. Qualitative analysis methods included examining text from participant interviews, focus groups, government documents, newspapers, Internet sites, and current literature. Content was coded by identifying common themes in the English and the Māori language. Words like genetic modification (GM), genetic engineering (GE), and biotechnology were explained to provide a basic understanding between the communities and researcher. The terminology applied in the research was essential to achieve communication between the researcher and the community. The resultant themes represented seven views to interpret the communities association with biotechnology: purist Māori, religious Māori, anti Māori, pro Māori, no Māori, uncertain Māori, and middle Māori views. The themes are taken from the analysis of data compiled after 3 years of completing different stages of a research project. The views indicate that a common understanding can be achieved in the diverse range of Māori tribal communities providing those communicating biotechnology can identify the view and interpretations communities associate with biotechnology. This knowledge is essential for government agencies, researchers, community practitioners, scientist, and businesses that desire to dialogue with Māori communities in the language of biotechnology.     

Māori Research Collaborations,Mātauranga Māori Science and the Appropriation of Water in New Zealand

This article is an exploratory piece which introduces an argument that a new Māori-science discourse for freshwater has emerged in New Zealand. At the heart of the discourse is the Māori word mātauranga. Drawing on my attendance at a recent Māori water symposium, this work will track the shifting power relationships and fluid boundaries of groups of people with interests in science and claims to freshwater resources. With a focus on the words and language used by Ngai Tahu tribal leaders and natural scientists attending the symposium, this work asks what role the politics of language and discourse plays in transforming identities, power relations and sociopolitical hierarchies. A major focus of this article is the shifting relationships between identity, knowledge and power. Its thesis is that subtle shifts in discourse reflect wider social and symbolic struggles.     

Human Perceptions of Megafaunal Extinction Events Revealed by Linguistic Analysis of Indigenous Oral Traditions

Human settlement into new regions is typically accompanied by waves of animal extinctions, yet we have limited understanding of how human communities perceived and responded to such ecological crises. The first megafaunal extinctions in New Zealand began just 700 years ago, in contrast to the deep time of continental extinctions. Consequently, indigenous Māori oral tradition includes ancestral sayings that explicitly refer to extinct species. Our linguistic analysis of these sayings shows a strong bias towards critical food species such as moa, and emphasizes that Māori closely observed the fauna and environment. Temporal changes in form and content demonstrate that Māori recognized the loss of important animal resources, and that this loss reverberated culturally centuries later. The data provide evidence that extinction of keystone fauna was important for shaping ecological and social thought in Māori society, and suggest a similar role in other early societies that lived through megafaunal extinction events.     

Applying spatial analysis to the agroecology-led management of an indigenous farm in New Zealand

In Aotearoa New Zealand Māori land is often owned by communities and managed by trusts. Under communal ownership, trust managers are expected to provide for their communities in culturally responsive ways, using alternative land-related paradigms. In the context of Māori trust rural land management, geographic information systems (GIS) are seen as a beneficial resource to plan and support important decisions that have community-wide implications. For example, it is much easier to demonstrate visually the putative outcomes of spatial change to large numbers of people with the help of a GIS than it is to verbalise the effects of change. This paper reports on one aspect of such an application to a Māori trust-owned South Island farm, where a GIS-based multi-criteria analysis of terrain and proximity was conducted using also local botanical knowledge input to indicate optimal areas of growth for traditional medicinal plants. The analysis yielded very useful results, with positive feedback received from the local community. As well as the need to verify the approach empirically, there are plans underway to apply GIS in this way to other similarly-managed farms in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, in order to build a more comprehensive decision support resource for farm management, further plant species need to be modelled, and informed by a wider data set that includes detailed soil data.     

Divergent paths,the pursuit of cultural recognition in Aotearoa New Zealand

Stimulated by a recent government ban on kosher slaughter (shechita), and a whale stranding involving Ngāti Toa near Wellington, the author compares the quests of Indigenous and minority groups for cultural rights in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Observing Māori and Jews navigating in the contexts of the Treaty of Waitangi and human rights legislation, this paper provides concrete ethnographic examples that highlight how such claims articulate with the political and legal contexts in this Antipodean nation.     

KIR diversity in Māori and Polynesians: populations in which HLA-B is not a significant KIR ligand

HLA class I molecules and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) form a diverse system of ligands and receptors that individualize human immune systems in ways that improve the survival of individuals and populations. Human settlement of Oceania by island-hopping East and Southeast Asian migrants started ~3,500 years ago. Subsequently, New Zealand was reached ~750 years ago by ancestral Māori. To examine how this history impacted KIR and HLA diversity, and their functional interaction, we defined at high resolution the allelic and haplotype diversity of the 13 expressed KIR genes in 49 Māori and 34 Polynesians. Eighty KIR variants, including four ‘new’ alleles, were defined, as were 35 centromeric and 22 telomeric KIR region haplotypes, which combine to give >50 full-length KIR haplotypes. Two new and divergent variant KIR form part of a telomeric KIR haplotype, which appears derived from Papua New Guinea and was probably obtained by the Asian migrants en route to Polynesia. Māori and Polynesian KIR are very similar, but differ significantly from African, European, Japanese, and Amerindian KIR. Māori and Polynesians have high KIR haplotype diversity with corresponding allotype diversity being maintained throughout the KIR locus. Within the population, each individual has a unique combination of HLA class I and KIR. Characterizing Māori and Polynesians is a paucity of HLA-B allotypes recognized by KIR. Compensating for this deficiency are high frequencies (>50 %) of HLA-A allotypes recognized by KIR. These HLA-A allotypes are ones that modern humans likely acquired from archaic humans at a much earlier time.     

Ancient DNA recovers the origins of Māori feather cloaks

Feather cloaks ("kakahu"), particularly those adorned with kiwi feathers, are treasured items or "taonga" to the Māori people of "Aotearoa"/New Zealand. They are considered iconic expression of Māori culture. Despite their status, much of our knowledge of the materials used to construct cloaks, the provenance of cloaks, and the origins of cloak making itself, has been lost. We used ancient DNA methods to recover mitochondrial DNA sequences from 849 feather samples taken from 109 cloaks. We show that almost all (>99%) of the cloaks were constructed using feathers from North Island brown kiwi. Molecular sexing of nuclear DNA recovered from 92 feather cloak samples also revealed that the sex ratio of birds deviated from a ratio of 1:1 observed in reference populations. Additionally, we constructed a database of 185 mitochondrial control region DNA sequences of kiwi feathers comprising samples collected from 26 North Island locations together with data available from the literature. Genetic subdivision (G(ST)), nucleotide subdivision (N(ST)) and Spatial Analysis of Molecular Variants (SAMOVA) analyses revealed high levels of genetic structuring in North Island brown kiwi. Together with sequence data from previously studied ancient and modern kiwi samples, we were able to determine the geographic provenance of 847 cloak feathers from 108 cloaks. A surprising proportion (15%) of cloaks were found to contain feathers from different geographic locations, providing evidence of kiwi trading among Māori tribes or organized hunting trips into other tribal areas. Our data also suggest that the east of the North Island of New Zealand was the most prolific of all kiwi cloak making areas, with over 50% of all cloaks analyzed originating from this region. Similar molecular approaches have the potential to discover a wealth of lost information from artifacts of endemic cultures worldwide.     

Key biocultural values to guide restoration action and planning in New Zealand

A pluralist and cross‐cultural approach that accommodates differing values while encouraging the collaboration and social cohesion necessary for the complex task of ecological restoration is needed. We used qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate value assigned to biocultural restoration of coastal forests in northern New Zealand by 26 interviewees from three groups (environmental managers, Māori community members, and community project leaders). Māori community members primarily emphasized the importance of Cultural Stewardship and Use in the restoration process, while placing less emphasis on Ecological Integrity. Otherwise, all participants shared common trends, culminating in three interrelated value sets: (1) Personal Engagement, (2) Connection, and (3) the generation and transfer of Knowledge & Wisdom. These values demonstrate that restoration's benefits to people and community are as significant as its reparations of ecological components. Despite differences, all stakeholders were united in a broadly common goal to restore socio‐ecological systems. Their knowledge and shared passion for conservation signal enormous promise for accelerated and effective restoration of coastal forests, if it is conducted using a pluralistic approach. Because some values expressed were intangible and complex, with cross‐cultural dimensions, current valuation tools used by ecological economists to guide management investment fail to adequately account for, in particular, Māori values of ecological restoration.     

Identifying advanced and delayed sleep phase disorders in the general population: A national survey of New Zealand adults

The aim was to estimate the prevalence of, and identify independent risk factors for, Advanced (ASPD) and Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder (DSPD) among Māori (indigenous New Zealanders) and non-Māori adults using a self-report questionnaire. The Munich Chronotype Questionnaire was mailed to a stratified sample of 9100 adults (5100 Māori and 4000 non-Māori) aged 20–59 years randomly selected from the electoral rolls (54% response rate). Different definitions for ASPD and DSPD were developed using combinations of symptoms including self-reported bed and rising times, current chronotype, and a desire to change sleep schedule. Logistic regression models were used to model the likelihood of reporting ASPD or DSPD separately after adjusting for ethnicity (Māori versus non-Māori), sex (males versus females), age (in decades), socio-economic deprivation (NZDep2006 deciles) and employment status (unemployed, night work versus employed with no night work). The prevalence of ASPD ranged from 0.25% to 7.13% whereas the prevalence of DSPD was 1.51 to 8.90% depending on the definition used. The prevalence of ASPD was higher among men and increased with age. The prevalence of DSPD was higher among those living in more deprived areas and decreased with age. After controlling for ethnicity, gender, age, socio-economic deprivation and employment status, people with ASPD were more likely to report excessive daytime sleepiness, whereas those with DSPD were more likely to report poor or fair self-rated health. Reporting ASPD and DSPD were associated with self-reported night work. In this large sleep timing survey, we found no differences in the prevalence of self-identified ASPD and DSPD between Maori and non-Maori. This has implications for the development and provision of sleep health services and strategies for managing the significant impact of work patterns on sleep.     

Decolonizing conviviality and ‘becoming ordinary’: cross-cultural face-to-face encounters in Aotearoa New Zealand

This paper explores convivial culture in a settler society. The paper draws on interview data from ethnographic research exploring how Māori and Pākehā worked together on a building project in a rural community. Both Māori and Pākehā participants reported their pleasure in engagements with each other that centred on Māori tikanga (protocols). In these encounters, Māori ‘difference’ was the catalyst for the development of new, convivial relationships. The paper argues that such everyday conviviality contributes to the process of decolonizing Māori–Pākehā relations at the level of everyday life. Through decolonizing conviviality Pakehā ‘become ordinary’ in Māori cultural contexts, and are offered the opportunity to come to understand themselves as embedded in colonial relationalities. Crucial to the development of such conviviality is the opportunity for face-to-face, embodied encounters with Māori in contexts where Māori cultural difference matters.     

Mauss,Interestedness, and Disinterestedness: Hawaiian and Maori Fisheries

This article uses Mauss's thesis on The Gift as a lens through which to critically compare Hawaiian and Māori fisheries. I focus, in particular, on the specific and paradoxical blending of interestedness and disinterestedness in the subsistence sector in Hawaii, and the historical separation of these phenomena in the context of fisheries management in New Zealand. As emergent financial commodities fish symbolises a new type of disjuncture between production and exchange, a disjuncture which is likely to be unsustainable in terms of either human or environmental costs.     

Incidence,trends, and survival of oropharyngeal squamous cell cancer in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2006–2020

BackgroundAn increasing trend of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) has been reported in several countries with different demographic characteristics, and often attributed to increases in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. The survival of patients with OPC has steadily improved, especially for those with positive HPV status. This study assessed the incidence, trends, and survival of OPC in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) by age at diagnosis, sex and ethnicity.MethodsThe study included all 2109 patients resident in NZ with a primary diagnosis of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma from 2006 to 2020, identified from the National Cancer Registry. We assessed age-standardised incidence rate (ASR), annual percent change (APC) and overall and relative survival rates.ResultsThe average annual incidence of OPC was 2.2 per 100,000 population. There was a steady increase of 4.9% per year over 15 years. Although the incidence rates were higher in males over the study period, the overall rate of increase was similar in males (4.9%) and in females (4.3%). The incidence was highest in the 50–69-year group (8.8/100,000 population). This age group had an incidence that increased by 7.5% per year to 2018, and then declined. The main increase in rates was seen between the birth cohort of 1946–50 and that of 1956–60. The increase in incidence was seen in Māori and Pākehā/European populations, but no increase was seen in Pacific or Asian populations. The 5-year overall relative survival rate improved from 69% in 2006‐13 to 78% in 2014–20. Survival rates were lower in older patients, females, and Māori patients.ConclusionThis study confirmed a substantial increase in OPC incidence in NZ, with some evidence to suggest a recent slowing in this increase. Māori and Pākehā/European had the highest incidence, while Pacific and Asian populations showed the lowest rates and no increase over the study period. Survival rates have improved over time, but remained lower in some demographic groups.     

Explaining fire‐driven landscape transformation during the Initial Burning Period of New Zealand's prehistory

At the time of Māori settlement, ca. 750 years ago, New Zealand's ecosystems experienced catastrophic change, including the introduction of fire to ignition‐limited ecosystems and the resulting widespread loss of forest. While high‐resolution sediment‐charcoal analyses suggest this forest loss was rapid, Māori populations were small and transient during the Initial Burning Period and there is evidence for widespread fire activity in places where there is little archaeological evidence of human presence. These observations beg the question ‘how did small populations manage to transform large areas so rapidly?’ Using a simulation model, we demonstrate how the relationship between time since fire and flammability in New Zealand's forests drives positive feedbacks that allow for rapid and extensive deforestation. Under ignition scenarios mirroring prehuman conditions, the model did not produce significant deforestation – thus, it is extremely unlikely that deforestation could have occurred without human‐initiated burning. Scenarios where ignition was spatio‐temporally random also failed to result in deforestation. Rapid and widespread forest loss occurred in scenarios incorporating spatio‐temporally savvy selection of ignition locations. Targeting ignitions in flammable vegetation was more important than targeting ignitions in years with favourable climatic conditions. However, targeting in space and time concurrently, such that flammable vegetation was ignited during favourable climatic years was the most efficient strategy of those simulated. Following the Initial Burning Period decadal ignitions would have been sufficient to maintain a deforested shrubland/grassland landscape. New Zealand's Initial Burning Period is one of many that occurred across eastern Polynesia following human settlement, and these events have left long‐term legacy effects that remain evident in contemporary landscapes. Improving understanding of how humans shaped environments in New Zealand in the past has implications for eastern Polynesia as a whole.     

Which factors account for the ethnic inequalities in stage at diagnosis and cervical cancer survival in New Zealand?

Objective: There are substantial ethnic inequalities in stage at diagnosis and cervical cancer survival in New Zealand. We assessed what proportions of these differences were due to screening history (for the analyses of late stage diagnosis), stage at diagnosis (for the analyses of survival), comorbid conditions (for the analyses of survival), and travel time to the nearest General Practitioner and cancer centre. Methods: The study involved 1594 cervical cancer cases registered during 1994–2005. We used G-computation to assess the validity of the estimates obtained by standard logistic regression methods. Results: Māori women had a higher risk of late stage diagnosis compared with ‘Other’ (mainly European) women (odds ratio (OR) = 2.71; 95% confidence interval 1.98, 3.72); this decreased only slightly (OR 2.39; 1.72, 3.30) after adjustment for screening history, and travel time to the nearest General Practitioner and cancer centre. In contrast, the (non-significantly) elevated risk in Pacific women (1.39; 0.76, 2.54) disappeared almost completely when adjusted for the same factors (1.06; 0.57, 1.96). The hazard ratio of mortality for cervical cancer for Māori women was 2.10 (1.61, 2.73) and decreased to 1.45 (1.10, 1.92) after adjustment for stage at diagnosis, comorbid conditions, and travel time to the nearest General Practitioner and cancer centre; the corresponding estimates for Pacific women were 1.96 (1.23, 3.13) and 1.55 (0.93, 2.57). The G-computation analyses gave similar findings. Conclusions: The excess relative risk of late stage diagnosis in Māori women remains largely unexplained, while more than half of the excess relative risk of mortality in Māori and Pacific women is explained by differences in stage at diagnosis and comorbid conditions.     

Nostalgia,Memory, and Modernity: Bridal Portraits in Contemporary Beijing

This article examines the multiple ways in which persons of mixed descent were invisible in most New Zealand cities during the first half of the 20th century. It is argued that living as mixed descent was a highly visible experience during the 19th century, but this increasingly gave way to invisibility during an era of state-sponsored assimilation. Invisibility was a strategy for survival and success in the mainstream society, but was often accompanied by cultural loss. It is argued that oral histories, in conjunction with the family photograph album, provide an important way in which to recover lost histories, and that the descendants of persons who disappeared into urban New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century are employing the family photograph album to assert their Māori identity and overcome a history of dispersal and loss.     

Māori Culture on Stage: Authenticity and Identity in Tourist Interactions1

Cultural tourism is often described as inciting visited populations to adapt elements of their culture to the visitors' tastes instead of displaying their real way of life or identity. Even when researchers adopt a constructivist approach to authenticity, they often assume that it is defined according to the criteria or expectations of the tourists. In this paper, I analyse three Māori cultural shows in New Zealand, and explore the way cultural authenticity is defined in tourist interactions. I review the arguments in favour of rejecting the opposition between ‘inauthentic’ staged culture and ‘authentic’ daily life. My study tends to indicate that if authenticity is better described as a social construction, the host society might be more active in this process than visitors.