Māori climate risk worsened by colonization, report finds
This story is published by the Indigenous News Alliance.
In Aotearoa, New Zealand, unprecedented storms and flooding are impacting Māori land, health and culture. And, according to a new national climate report, colonization has intensified these risks.
The National Climate Change Risk Assessment 2026 is made up of four reports, including a companion document focused on Māori communities. This report argues that climate change is likely to worsen existing inequalities shaped by colonization, exclusion from decision-making and chronic underinvestment.
To mitigate the impacts of climate change, the assessment highlights that Māori-led adaptation is particularly effective. It calls for policy grounded in Māori customs and knowledge, Indigenous data sovereignty and stronger Māori authority in climate decision-making.
“For over 150 years, Māori have literally been pushed to the margins by an aggressive process of colonization,” said Paora Tapsell, who is Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa, and director of the Kāika Institute of Climate Resilience at Lincoln University.
The assessment, released earlier this month, adds to a growing number of national reports that highlight the harmful impacts of colonial policies on indigenous peoples and the environment. In 2023, the fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment found that land theft and colonization had exacerbated the impact of climate change. The previous year, the State of Australia’s Environment report had been prepared for the first time with an Indigenous lead author; it found that indigenous people were more likely to be affected by extreme weather events like fires. It also called for integrating indigenous knowledge into climate policies. Despite these findings, indigenous leaders around the world say national governments are still not listening to them.
Aotearoa, New Zealand, recently experienced one of the most active extreme weather seasons on record, with several states of emergency declared across the country’s two islands. It also found that the country’s indigenous people play a vital role in responding to such disasters. “The report accurately recognizes that many kāinga [Māori settlements]despite their relative impoverishment, are still willing first responders on the front lines of increasingly severe climate events,” said Shaun Awatere, who is Ngāti Porou and lead author of the companion report.
The assessment’s seven interconnected risk areas cover environmental, cultural and economic areas. It says the loss of protected endemic species is not only a biodiversity issue, but also affects food gathering locations, the Māori lunar calendar, traditional customs and intergenerational knowledge systems. Some species could experience near-irreversible decline in parts of the country under high emissions scenarios by 2090, according to the report.
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On Māori land, climate-driven extreme weather events have had a destructive impact on infrastructure. But the report highlights how flooding, erosion, storms and wildfires also pose cultural risks by threatening tribal meeting places, burial grounds and communal houses. He warns that repeated damage and displacement could lead to long-term cultural fragmentation and disconnection from ancestral lands.
Climate impacts can also be felt economically. Māori-owned forestry, agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture businesses face increasing pressure from climate hazards, costs and underinvestment in adaptation. Without structural reforms and targeted support, the assessment indicates that economic vulnerability will increase.
Awatere says the results confirm what tribes have been saying for years. “Climate events don’t happen one by one,” he said. “A storm floods a road, damages a marae [tribal meeting place]erodes whenua [land]disrupts access to Mahinga Kai [food gathering places]and suddenly overwhelms already strained health and social protection systems. Each of these harms aggravates the next.
The assessment also indicates that climate-driven displacement and ecological degradation could disrupt the transmission of language, customary practices, lineage relationships and indigenous knowledge systems between generations.
Awatere highlighted the continued structural exclusion of Māori from climate planning and adaptation systems, despite the government’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, which is the country’s founding document. The report describes legal exclusion and governance failure as a major risk multiplier, worsening climate impacts across the board.
Awatere says the central question is whether adaptation plans will reflect this evidence or whether Māori communities will continue to be at disproportionate risk of harm.
