Please sign up to keep connected
Why are we gathering?
As space activities increase on the Māhia Peninsula and lunar missions accelerate worldwide, we gather to explore how the Pacific can guide space futures grounded in kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and relational ethics.
Hina Wānanga offers a space to reflect deeply on protections for the moon and the whenua of Aotearoa as space industry activity expands. Starting in relationship, kōrero and action for the moon, weaving creative practice, body work, storytelling and collective care to consider how communities can act in solidarity across movements for Land, peoples, and justice.
Te Wānanga o Hina begins in partnership with Space Place/Carter Observatory, bringing together Māori, Moana Oceania and Pākehā knowledge holders, scientists, policy-makers, and space industry partners.
Rooted in friendship across the seas, the work is intended to nourish creativity and relationships that may protect the moon and the living worlds she illuminates, comforts and strengthens, building collaboration and a long-term Pacific network of practitioners, artists, lawyers, scientists, and researchers for the protection of the lunar environment and wider celestial relations.
To begin shaping the kaupapa with genuine community involvement and to introduce the mahi and share learning about the rights and laws governing the moon, we are planning small meetings over the next year, including online meetings that will invite moon activists from across the Pacific and beyond.
Taking inspiration from work in Aotearoa that builds on legal recognition of the personhood of natural entities, we grow the wānanga to continue legacies of collective action on Land rights, bring that focus into lunar activism, and connect with the wider movement for Hina throughout the Pacific.
Ngā mihi mahana,
Desna Whaanga-Schollum,
Hon.FRAIC (Rongomaiwahine, Pāhauwera, Kahungunu, Ngāi Tahu Matawhaiti ki Māhia), Taipōrutu, Te Māhia-mai-Tawhiti
Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu,
(Molokaʻi Nui a Hina, Kanakaʻaukai, Kanaka ʻŌiwi) Vaʻaomanū Pasifika, Pacific Studies, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington
Kate Genevieve,
Astro Ecologies Institute / Pūtaiao ki te Pāpori Science in Society at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington
Tim Corballis,
Pūtaiao ki te Pāpori / School of Science in Society at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington
Values rooting the work
Wānanga through relations
The ecological crisis begins in relational imbalance. In Māori knowledge systems, the Moon is understood as an ancestor endowed with mana, holding prestige, authority, influence, and spiritual power - mauri - the vital life force that animates and connects all living things. By tracing whakapapa (genealogical relationships) and the living ties between whenua/land, moana/ocean, and Hina/moon, our kaupapa follows tikanga Māori (Māori law and value that guide right conduct and relationships) and Pacific protocols, united in aroha, and sharing breath, energy and wairua (spirit).
Dialogue across Oceans and understandings
Our lunar kaupapa invites intergenerational and transcultural dialogue, honouring those who came before, plural imaginaries, to nurture wellbeing of human and more-than-human communities, towards lunar relationships and knowledge enduring for future generations.
Imagination and Storytelling
Across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, all beings are creative; storytelling, imagination and collective meaning-making welcome all to share knowledge and to participate and work with Indigenous Storywork principles. Storytelling makes space for lived experience, embodied wellbeing, feeling, sensing and laughing in work for longterm transformations.
Law and Constitution through a Pacific lens
Te Tiriti-led approaches to lunar governance take up legal precedents in Aotearoa that affirm natural entities as integral beings, holding rights and implying human responsibilities. Across Pacific solidarities, from Māhia to Mauna Kea, we gather to affirm the rights of nature and Pacific protocols for guardianship grounded in manaakitanga, ethical principles and relational accountability.
- Perspectives on the Rights of the Moon from Oceania - initial work presented at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), 2024
-
Declaration for the Rights of the Moon - drafted by the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), 2021
To deepen understanding of the values that guide Te Wānanga o Hina, we invite you to read Aroha Mai ~ Aroha Atu by Lara Taylor, Kathryn Gale, Alison Greenaway, and Desna Whaanga-Schollum.Read the article on Pantograph Punch