Environmental Scientist

Kia ora, my name’s Mahina-a-rangi Baker. I’m an environmental consultant and a kaitiaki and I work predominantly for Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai which is my iwi here in Waikanae.

Working as a kaitiaki, as someone who protects the environment on behalf of our people requires you to be a bit of a jack of all trades. In any given week I could be working with freshwater scientists, stormwater engineers, planners at council, people who actually do construction on the ground. I think that’s potentially one of the most challenging aspects of this work, but it’s also quite rewarding because it means that we have a really integrated overview of all the things that are going on in our region. If I sit down with a freshwater scientist they may not actually be aware that their colleague who works in stormwater is actually doing some sort of works further down the river. I find that it’s helpful that we can bring that more integrated approach to things where we have a general understanding of what’s going on in all sorts of spaces within the environment.

What drew me into doing this sort of work, when I was a teenager our iwi here asked for young people to assist with kiwi translocations from Kapiti Island. So I went over to the island to help catch kiwi to send to other islands and I think in that process of handling kiwi and spending time with our native birds and our taonga I really grew an appreciation for how special they are, and wanted to work in a space where I could help protect them. And that then directed me to take a lot of science classes in high school and then to do a degree in ecology.

I applied for a lot of scholarships when I was at university and one of the scholarships I had provided me with a work placement and it was a very scientific role working in a lab looking at the effects of pesticides on bee communities. So it was very technical, not in the field. But I think having that grounding in hard science is very helpful.

Some of the projects that I’m working on at the moment are responding to applications by either council or private developers where they want to build a new development, or want to do some sort of work in a river or a stream that’s going to have an effect on the environment and we provide input into a management plan that may have some sort of impact on freshwater.

Typically the way that people think about effects to freshwater are chemical or biological. So might look at the chemistry of the water, the water quality, the ecology of the river catchment. A Māori approach will look at those things but it will also consider, what are the effects to the cultural heritage of that river? Because for us landscape is really imbued with historical and cultural meaning. What’s the effect spiritually? And not just spiritually to the people but to the peaceful and calm quality that water and rivers often have. What are the social effects? So can our people still go down and eat from the river? Do we see our traditional foods being put on our marae, are we able to serve food to people? Those types of considerations, I think Māori are able to bring that fuller picture. And what we find is that those values in one way are specifically Māori but non-Māori can relate to that too.

The job requires me to consult widely with our iwi to maintain really good relationships. In particular with our kaumātua, or our elderly community. That’s something I’ve been encouraged to do since I was quite young. But certainly anyone getting into this work I’d encourage them to participate and be active within their own iwi, because whilst in our job there’s a lot of reading and writing, our responsibility is that we’re accurately reflecting the values that our people hold.

For people looking to do this type of work, the starting point is with the iwi itself. That being said, within the mainstream sector, within ministries and council there’s also a huge demand for people who not only have a background in environmental science, but particularly if they have familiarity with the Māori world, or with Māori knowledge, there’s a huge demand for people with those skills.