Earlier this year, hearings were held in the High Court at Christchurch after iwi leaders and overarching organisation, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, took the attorney-general to court, seeking recognition of rangatiratanga (chiefly authority) over wai māori (freshwater) in its takiwā (territory).
Kāi Tahu (as the iwi is known in the southern dialect) and photographer Anne Noble have developed her images, used to support the iwi’s case, into "Unutai e! Unutai e!", which will open at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery on Saturday.
Te Rūnaka o Ōtākou upoko Edward Ellison (Kāi Tahu) gave evidence for Ngāi Tahu and said the case was built on "generations of issues" — the loss of wetlands, waterways and mahika kai (traditional food gathering and the places it occurs).
"It had been something our people had been pushing, raising with the Crown and others for generations."
Mr Ellison said the exhibition could be a great benefit in raising awareness of the state of waterways in the takiwā.
"The impact that’s had on our lakes, rivers, wetlands, freshwater resources ... the degradation on customary food resources ... on the ability of our people to access those resources.
"If there’s a breakage in that, that also affects the mātauranga, the knowledge that’s passed by the activity of customary use."
Ms Noble’s photography was a "powerful tool" and Mr Ellison hoped on viewing the exhibition, people could understand the impact of declining waterways.
"I think [public understanding is] an important tool in the kit, that everyone has to understand how best to manage these things."
"People have been suffering this now for generations ... it affects our mana and our rangatiratanga," he said.
"For us to look our mokopuna [descendants] in the eye and say we did our best, this is important to us."
In his evidence, Mr Ellison spoke about Lake Tatawai, a place of mahika kai immediately north of Lake Waihola, which was drained in the 1920s.
"That the village nearby, and their key source of food, was gone, and that village was vaporised," Mr Ellison said.
"There are examples like that all around the tribal territory."
When Ngāi Tahu began Treaty negotiations in the mid-1990s, the Crown felt water was a too complex issue to deal with at the time and it was agreed the topic was "off the table", he said.
"We continued to see a decline in our water quality, toxicity in our waters. People were still eating out of these places."
To him, rangatiratanga would mean being able to carry conversations on wai māori to the Crown. .
"Unutai e! Unutai e!" runs from Saturday to October 12.
