Safeguarding Māori Cultural Rights and Stewardship: Te Tira Whakamātaki's Position Paper on Seed Conservation

This document represents TTW’s expectations or principles when seed banking with Māori communities. We do not wish to speak on behalf of all iwi, hapū, and whanau but rather offer our thoughts based on our work in the field. It also outlines several calls to action for the Crown to meet under their Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations. It is our intention that this document is used by Māori communities to guide their seed bank endeavors (guidelines that begin to outline best practices in seed banking) while simultaneously informing the Crown of their responsibilities in this area. We begin at the latter by outlining five seed bank calls to action that, if followed, would enable tikanga to become an integral part to seed banking in Aotearoa – New Zealand.