ABSTRACT
Current problems implementing sustainability point to fragmentation based upon Western modernity’s propensity towards atomism and reductionism in contending with the environmental problematique. Rather than acknowledging the inherent connections between ecological and social health, modern practitioners focus upon ecological bottom lines and continue to maintain the arrogance that humankind has the ability to manage planet Earth. Other peoples and cultures, such as Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand, do not see planet Earth, or Papatuanuku from a Maori worldview, as divisible into separate spheres or dimensions. Ecological and social justice are inseparable; one is inherently entangled with the other. Aotearoa New Zealand, a land with bicultural distinctions through the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti O Waitangi and multicultural populations, provides an excellent example of how a people with a holistic worldview simultaneously use and challenge contemporary institutions to promote and protect a world which aspires to reconnecting social and environmental justice. In order to focus the complexity of neocolonial challenges in Aotearoa New Zealand, this chapter will address the contemporary responses to genetic engineering and bioprospecting evident in the Aotearoa cultural, sociopolitical, and biotechnological landscape.
E rite ai nga tangata ki nga reo manu o te ngahere, ka ketekete te Kaka, ka koko te Tui, ka kuku te Kereru. hakoa te rereketanga o nga reo manu nei, ka tau tonu te wao nui a Tane. Ko te tikanga, tiakina te rereketanga, kia tu te kotahitanga.
People are similar to the bird songs of the forest, the Kaka chatters, the Tui soars, and the Kereru withdraws. Regardless of the diversity of voice emanating from these bird songs, the forest remains settled. Only by nurturing diversity shall unity be achieved.
(Maori proverb)