Ariana Estoras has her koro to thank for steering her toward science and agriculture: she was an inquisitive kid who asked a million questions, and he was a dry stock farmer who never failed to answer them. Now she’s a molecular biologist working at AgResearch, where mātauranga Māori is being used, alongside western science, to help the farming sector. Here’s her kōrero with Dale Husband.

 

Kia ora, Ariana. I always start with names because they can be quite revealing. Could you start us off there, and talk about your whānau, please? Paint a picture for us of your childhood.

My married name is Ariana Estoras — Estoras is from my husband, Jon, who comes from Quezon City, which is in Manila in the Phillippines.

My birth name is Ariana Moe Moe Hemara-Wahanui. Wahanui comes from our tupuna Reihana Huatare Wahanui who was married to Wairingiringi. They had no issue, but Wairingiringi was whanaunga to us on our Hemara Rerehau Te Whanonga side. And so they had several whāngai children, including Tūwhāngai and Tuaarau, and also my great-grandfather Hari Hemara. He was gifted the name Wahanui, to carry it on. So that’s how we get to carry this wonderful name with a lot of mana.

Wahanui was instrumental in the prohibition of alcohol within Te Rohe Pōtae (the King Country), alongside Taonui and other Maniapoto leaders. He was also a strong proponent of the Kīngitanga. So our whānau tūturu name is Hemara Te Whanonga, and it became Hemara-Wahanui. That’s the name that I inherited from my pāpā, George Hemara-Wahanui, and from his father, Kohatu, and from his grandfather, Hari.

So that’s the Hemara-Wahanui whakapapa. As I was growing up, people who knew a bit of reo would say: “Oh, you’re the big mouth — you know, waha-nui.”

But as I grew older and started to understand where the names come from and the importance of names and history — and because Wahanui was known as a great orator, in both Māori and Pākehā environments, including in parliament — I grew into my name, and I’m very proud of it.

Moe Moe is my grandmother’s name on my mum Valma Davis’s side. Nana Moe was also from Ngāti Maniapoto, and she was a Barrett and a Te Kanawa from Pohatuiri marae, the principal marae in Waitomo for Ngāti Uekaha.

My first name, I believe, came from Mum. I think she had a bit of a fascination with a French opera singer, or something like that. So that’s where Ariana comes from.

How many in your family? And what were your folks doing when you were a kid?

Just me and my tuākana Ngahuia. She’s based with her whānau in Ōtaki working at Te Wānanga o Raukawa.

Mum and Dad left the King Country before I was born, for mahi. They were both working at Tokanui, the psychiatric hospital just south of Te Awamutu. That hospital was a big employer of Māori. And then a lot of jobs came up at Lake Alice, which is between Whanganui and Palmerston North. So they and a few of their friends decided to move out of the King Country.

We moved down to Lake Alice and then to Marton, which is where we grew up. But we still had Grandad (my mum’s dad, Koro Totorewa Davis) back in Waitomo. All my other grandparents had passed away by the time I came on the scene. We had a very strong pull back to Waitomo because of Grandad. We were always going back to Waitomo, to Ōtorohanga, to Te Awamutu, to see the whānau, help on the farm with Grandad, and things like that.

We had a lovely upbringing in Rangitikei under the korowai manaaki of Ngā Wairiki Ngāti Apa. Lots of Māori in the area, not necessarily from there. But we also made lifelong connections with whānau Māori from Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Tainui waka like Ngāti Kauwhata and Ngāti Raukawa.

After staying home for many years to raise my sister and me, Mum went to work at Jim Bull, which was bought by Wattie’s, and then by Heinz, and she ended up in food quality assurance. Dad continued working in mental health.

You can’t help but note the bad press of recent times, about how patients were treated in those institutions of yesteryear. What have you made of what’s been revealed about what occurred at both Tokanui and at Lake Alice. How has that sat with you?

We’ve had whānau kōrero about it, because we all wondered what kinds of things were going on. There were plenty of Māori working in those places, but I doubt that they were in positions of leadership. Maybe they were somewhat oblivious to what was going on.

But particularly with Lake Alice, I remember saying to Dad: “What about those treatments that they were doing?” But I believe the individuals who were identified as doing those treatments had left before Dad started there. That’s not to say that there weren’t lingering things going on. But just knowing my parents and the manaaki that they have for people, I believe their intentions would always have been positive.

In a previous conversation, you mentioned that your koro influenced you to move in the direction of science and agriculture. How did that happen?

As I said, we spent a lot of time with my grandad on his farm in Waitomo. I’m sure we were free labour, but it was visionary, too, because my parents and grandad and aunties and uncles were making sure that we had strong ties home, to the whenua, to whānau, to the marae and to Waitomo.

Grandad was a dry stock farmer. And I was an inquisitive child who asked a lot of questions. You know: “Why does a tadpole turn into a frog?” “Why are we moving these cattle from here to there?” “How do you know it’s going to rain?” Loads of questions for my grandad, particularly about the farm and the environment.

I wouldn’t say he was always a strong communicator with his mokopuna, but he answered my questions. He communicated mainly through his strong work ethic, his love of catching tuna, hunting, and being an avid reader. I loved figuring out how things worked, and he was a huge influence on me.

But, also, education was highly valued in our whānau — it was a given for my generation. Although my parents didn’t go to university, Mum’s younger siblings did. So we saw that growing up. Both sides of the whānau valued education, but they didn’t have the money to pursue it for all their children — Mum is one of 10 children and Dad is one of 15. I knew I was going to university from a very young age, and I was always encouraged to believe that.

When I started to do science at high school, I saw that science is all about the environment and how we sit within it, and about the interaction of things, and how things work. I had great science teachers like Mr Smith and Ms Goymour at Rangitikei College. So science has been quite a natural fit for me and my childhood inquisitiveness.

I didn’t realise that there weren’t many Māori in the sciences, but it didn’t bother me until I got to university — and then I really felt it. Straight after high school, I came down to Dunedin to Otago University, and I didn’t know anyone. Nobody from my school came here, and we had no whānau here either.

So it was a real contrast from being in the North Island where, you know, the Warriors were everything and Māori were everywhere. And then you come down here and it’s the complete opposite — a lot of people didn’t know what rugby league was, and it was hard to identify Māori.

So, yeah, hardly any Māori at university — we’re talking 20 years ago. And none at all in science, except me. But that never put me off. I’ve always seen it as a challenge. And I think you adapt. You figure out how to fit in and get through those spaces while holding on to your identity as Māori.

Sometimes it got difficult, that’s for sure. But you find friends. There were a lot of international students there and I gelled with them big time. They were from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, just my kind of people. Very, very similar to Māori, whānau-oriented around kai, and thinking about the greater collective, not the individual. So you find your people, and you find ways to get through it.

I did my undergraduate study in microbiology and biochemistry, and then I went on to do my master’s in biochemistry, specialising in molecular biology.

Did you think when you were studying molecular biology that you would end up working in a space where mātauranga Māori and agribusiness intersect? Did you ever think that your tertiary study would land you where you’ve landed?

Not directly. But I think back to how I got into my master’s, and it was because I did a summer studentship after my undergrad years and found an incredible project with the Manuel whānau (descendants of Hose Emmanuel, the Spanish whaler) from the East Coast who have an inherited retinal disorder. And my summer project was using molecular biological tools to work out what was going on.

So I got to work with the whānau to get an understanding of their whānau kōrero associated with the blindness and some of the disorders in their whānau. They were looking for ways to identify whether members of the whānau had the gene, and also whether it would be passed on if they chose to have children. It was a really big kaupapa.

And through that time, there were obviously questions that came up, like the collection of blood samples for the study — and I remember being asked by my master’s supervisors: “What are the cultural practices that we have to put in place for the blood collection, use of samples, storage etc, and what do we then do with it?”

And I had no idea, because although I’d been brought up in a Māori whānau, I didn’t know how that translated into a science protocol. These were typical times where the youngest and most inexperienced member of the science team who happened to be Māori was being asked to develop cultural protocols for the research.

I wish I could say this doesn’t happen now, but all I can say is that it doesn’t happen as much. Fortunately, we had Dr Colin Mantell from Auckland University, who came in and provided some advice.

So, you can see that, indirectly, tikanga was being developed within the research to work with the whānau and their whakapapa, and they were sharing mātauranga or cultural narratives from within their whānau that informed the research, and which needed to be managed carefully and respectfully.

So, the interaction of mātauranga Māori and science was happening back then.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve really seen our mātauranga Māori having a place as a knowledge system in the wider New Zealand society, alongside western science.

You’ve done lots of interesting work with Dairy New Zealand and Māori agribusiness, and now as the director of Māori Strategy, Research and Partnerships at AgResearch. It’s intriguing that AgResearch would have a position like this — it’s an indication that they do take mātauranga Māori seriously. Can you give some examples of how mātauranga Māori and more modern scientific concepts meet?

Can I talk first about what happened in AgResearch? Because I want to acknowledge a few people.

For 20 years or more, AgResearch has had, in some shape or form, somebody working in the Māori partnerships and engagement space. Partnership and engagement are things most people understand. You’ve got to build relationships to do business and get things done.

As the years went on, we had different people who really drove this kaupapa. People like Tanira Kingi, Mavis Mullins, Tanya Simpson, Chris Koroheke, Rukumoana Schaafhausen and Paul Reynolds. They were all exposed to much broader trends in Aotearoa and internationally, and they were able to bring that perspective into AgResearch.

We were able to put the business case to grow Māori research capability — and the exec team and board could see the benefits of developing this area, and having Māori researchers leading kaupapa Māori research approaches, having more partnerships expertise, and having a strategy about innovation from both mātauranga Māori and science.

All of this is about Māori having access to and being active participants in the research, science and innovation system in Aotearoa. We’re incredibly grateful to all those people who contributed to this journey.

A solid example that we’re working on now is the body of knowledge that sits around rongoā rākau. Our people know that there are native plants that have naturally occurring toxins and antimicrobial or antibiotic properties. We’ve grown up with this because our parents or our grandparents would always apply poultices of native plants to wounds, or drink kawakawa tea for a sore puku, or have infusions for other ailments.

So we’ve had rongoā rakau knowledge-holders approach us at AgResearch about the possibilities of applying this knowledge to animal health, working alongside our immunologists.

What this looks like in practice is that the process of screening plants is accelerated because you have strong leads of what plants to start with and what compounds to look for, based on how they’ve helped human ailments in the past.

If you’re starting from scratch, you’d be screening millions of bioactive compounds across thousands of different plants. But because you’re bringing together those two bodies of knowledge, you’re leapfrogging that screening process. So, you’d go: “Well, kawakawa is great for puku ailments, so how might that work with parasites in sheep?”

Another area is using the maramataka (the Māori lunar calendar) and seeing how our traditional Māori practices around planting kai, growing kai, and harvesting kai, might sit alongside conventional land management practices such as sowing rye grass and crop rotations.

The knowledge is there because of our traditional practices around planting and harvesting kai according to the maramataka, so the innovation is in applying that knowledge in farming landscapes.

Our forebears were very sophisticated soil scientists. I recall an archaeological dig that uncovered māra (gardens) where various soils had been utilised in the same patch. The soils had been brought in from other areas to enhance the growing potential of the land. Now, that didn’t occur by accident, and that points to a sophisticated system of agriscience that is sometimes undervalued, or at least adds weight to what mātauranga Māori can offer us in the agribusiness field.

Yes, I agree 100 percent. Garth Harmsworth in Manaaki Whenua spoke with various iwi groups and hapū and unearthed hundreds of different Māori descriptions for soil. What that tells us is that there’s a sophistication in the categorisation that was taking place. Within the names, there’s information about the properties of the soil and descriptions that relate to key events or the wider context of where that soil was identified.

The naming process allowed important information to be captured and passed on for future generations — it would inform what you can plant or not plant there, and when to plant it or harvest it.

Sadly, there’s been some suggestion that our knowledge systems don’t marry up with western science. I know that kōrero has been debunked, but it was disrespectful and dismissive of a knowledge bank built up over thousands of years. How did you react to that suggestion that mātauranga Māori and western science don’t merge?

I was so angry. I wouldn’t dare talk about an area of science that I had no knowledge of or expertise in, and judge it and make assertions about it, when that’s not my discipline area. It’s so frustrating that we have academics who think that mātauranga Māori doesn’t have a place in Aotearoa, when mātauranga Māori is the first science of these lands.

With certain people in the research sector, you just can’t change their minds. It doesn’t matter what evidence you put in front of them. They’ll see no value in it because they see no value in Māori.

I think what’s heartened me in AgResearch is that we’re an organisation of 600 people from all parts of the world with a good amount of interest in mātauranga Māori. One of our scientists, who’s from South America, said to me: “What right do I have to do anything with your traditional knowledge when I’m not from here, and I don’t even know what my own Indigenous knowledge is back home?”

My reply to that was: “Well, a big part of our culture is manaakitanga and sharing. And so you have every right to be a part of this journey that we’re on with mātauranga Māori. If you genuinely want to know more, then we want to share more.”

You can break down some of these walls by spending time to understand where people are coming from — and you can change minds. I guess my point is, we can’t spend energy on people whose minds can’t or won’t be changed. We work with those who want to work with us.

We have a unique opportunity to be something of a food house for the world, and so we’re wanting to ethically increase our production. And you’re familiar with some of our Māori land-based organisations having a 500-year plan, and wanting to protect the whenua, which of course is important to us. We see the earth as our mother, Papatūānuku, and we take this kaitiakitanga very seriously.

What would you say of our penchant for looking so far ahead, so that we can safeguard the whenua, so that it remains productive across generations still to come?

It’s ingrained in us from our creation narratives and through the way that we’re all connected — the way that we’re brought up to be a part of our whānau whānui and our hapū and our marae. So we’re always thinking about what’s best for the collective. And that extends to our whenua and the enviroment.

I think the key thing is that, as Māori, our long-term view, our intergenerational view, makes us who we are. It’s our superpower. And it can be a superpower for all of Aotearoa.

Unlike farmers on general title land who can bank on making capital gains when they sell their land at the end of their farming careers, Māori can’t farm for capital gain. They can’t sell whenua Māori for a capital gain. They farm for the long term, for the whenua, the environment, their whānau and the generations to come.

I firmly believe that it is a superpower for our country as a whole — Māori mai, Pākehā mai — to take a far more long-term, intergenerational view of whenua, and let that inform what kind of food-producing nation we want to be.

And I think we need to be comfortable that not all land will be productive. It’s not the land use that’s of significance to Māori. It’s the whenua itself — it’s Papatūānuku. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s in forest or dairy or whatever. For us as Māori, it’s about the whenua staying under our kaitiakitanga, and passing it on in a better shape for the next generation. This approach to land use can be a strength for all of Aotearoa.

I had a conversation today with Craig Bunt from Otago University, and we were talking about GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and how the Minister of Science, Judith Collins, is wanting to change the legislation banning GMOs and replace it with a regulatory framework. Do you have some thoughts on GMOs and how they fit into our goals?

I’m a member of the Gene Tech Regulator Technical Advisory group. Maui Hudson and I sit on that group alongside a bunch of gene-tech scientists and industry players. One of the reasons I agreed to go on that group is because AgResearch does gene-tech research in plants, though we no longer do it in animals.

Over the years, we’ve had conversations with our Māori partners about this research — and it’s difficult for them to get their heads around it or to be interested in it, because they can’t see how it directly impacts them. One of the commentaries that always comes through is: “What’s the risk if we do nothing instead of using this technology for research?”

I guess the risk is that, as the climate warms, some of the grasses that grow now will not be able to grow. Also, we’ll see greater burdens of pests and therefore greater animal health burdens on our stock. These are things that are being weighed up all the time.

But, without a doubt, when we talk with our various Māori partners about gene technologies, when it came to health, particularly something to do with cancer in the whānau, it’s a whole different discussion. If there’s a potential remedy or a cure from gene technologies, and you’ve lost a loved one or many loved ones to that disease, then the openness to gene tech is different.

What you see coming through from the policy change is that there are two streams: one is in the biomedical space, and the other is everything else — and that includes agriculture. And I think it’s important that we do allow advances in the biomedical space to move forward.

One of the things that many of us fought for in this proposed policy was around retaining some sense of Māori rights and interests. You’ve got the commissioner making the overall calls, but there are certain triggers that mean they have to go to committees. And one of those is a Māori advisory committee that will be similar to Ngā Kaihautū, which operates under the Environmental Protection Authority. We see that as a win, and we’ll be monitoring how the committee is set up.

It’s been a very interesting conversation, and I want to acknowledge your willingness to advance Māori thinking and knowledge systems in an area where many wouldn’t bother to consider it. I’d just like to leave the door open for you to tell me what keeps you fresh for life. Because so often we talk about what people do, instead of what people love.

My loves are my five-year-old daughter, Karahuia, and my husband, Jon, who love and support me. I’ve been on a much-needed hauora kaupapa this year to be the healthiest version of myself for life, because that’s about being a role model for my girl and my whānau, so that I’m around for a long time with them — and also because we had Karahuia when we were a bit older. So we need to make sure we’re fighting fit when she has her children and we become grandparents — and great-grandparents too!

Karahuia’s our trilingual girl, speaking te reo, Tagalog and English, and learning about all aspects of her whakapapa. I’m very grateful to have my parents who live with us as well, and they support us no end, especially because I travel quite a bit. Having that whānau support is everything.

I’m also enjoying the mātauranga Māori study that I’m doing at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, with my tuākana Ngāhuia, which has helped me discover my passion for gathering kōrero about our hapū history to share with the rest of our hapū. This brings great fulfilment for us. In time, this hapū kōrero will be our koha back to the hapū, and for our ahi kaa back home in Waitomo and Ōtorohanga.

In my mahi, I’m often away helping every other hapū and iwi across the motu. So it’s good for me to be doing something at home. Getting that balance right is important.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

E-Tangata, 2024