Can you tell us abit about your career to date (career journey) and all the many roles you are currently working on?
I studied Biochemistry (BSc) and Plant Biology (MSc) at the University of Canterbury, where I first developed an interest in contaminants, ecotoxicology, and environmental risk. During that time, I also became involved in environmental decision-making through the Ngāi Tahu Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Komiti, working at the interface of science, regulation, and mātauranga (indigenous knowledge). Today, I chair the Komiti and continue to support Ngāi Tahu on HSNO Act and other environmental matters.
My career then expanded into resource management and water infrastructure, where I worked alongside technical specialists, policymakers, local government, and mana whenua (Māori communities and practitioners). That experience reinforced my belief that the best outcomes come from combining technical excellence with indigenous knowledge, strong partnerships, and a long-term perspective.
In my current role as a Kaitohutohu Senior Advisor at WSP, I support environmental and infrastructure projects across Aotearoa, helping teams integrate mātauranga Māori into planning and delivery while providing technical advice. I also am a Member of Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, the New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority’s statutory Māori advisory group, and member of Te Puna Advisory Group for The New Zealand Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai, where I provide advice on the integration of Māori interests, knowledge, and Treaty obligations into environmental and water regulation.
While the roles are varied, the common thread throughout my career has been a focus on how we can deliver better environmental and infrastructure outcomes by weaving together technical expertise, mātauranga Māori, and strong partnerships. That is the space I am most passionate about, and it continues to shape the work I do today.
Why do forums like WasteMINZ and ALGA matter for driving change in this space, and what stood out to you from being part of those conversations this year?
Collaboration supports innovation and these forums are critical as they bring together a variety of expertise, experience and perspectives from across the contaminated land, resource management and waste management sectors. Many of the issues we are facing as a sector are complex and multifaceted, so having the opportunity to share lessons learned, discuss emerging challenges and innovation are critical.
What stood out to me this year was the growing focus on collaboration and long-term stewardship, rather than just compliance. I also had many conversations around recognising the value of indigenous knowledge and the importance of incorporating local perspectives into durable environmental decision-making.
What were the key insights you’d like to share from your time on stage and at the conference?
One of the key messages from my presentation at the Annual ALGA/WasteMINZ conference was that we need to broaden how we think about risk. Traditional assessments tend to focus on contaminants, pathways, and receptors, but they don’t always capture the wider impacts on ecosystems, communities, cultural practices, and future generations.
The conference reinforced that this thinking is gaining momentum across the sector. There was a strong interest in more holistic, systems-based approaches and a growing recognition that mātauranga Māori (indigenous knowledge) can strengthen technical assessments by providing insights into environmental connectivity, cumulative effects, and long-term stewardship. I will be further exploring this topic at the ALGA Emerging Contaminants Symposium, including how Māori cultural monitoring frameworks may support the identification of emerging contaminants.
What does it actually look like, in practice, for practitioners and regulators to integrate cultural and indigenous perspectives into their work?
I prefer the term interweaving as, like with a woven fabric, each knowledge system can stay within its own context and expertise, but together strengthen outcomes. This is a large topic in itself, but my four key takeaways are:
- Build relationships with indigenous communities. Understand their priorities, concerns and how your projects might positively or negatively impact them.
- Engage early in the project life cycle, rather than treating indigenous engagement as a compliance step at the end of a process. The best outcomes come where indigenous practitioners are able to input into project scope and outcomes
- Broaden the assessment lens to understand impacts on cultural impacts and taonga (treasured) species as well as the wider receiving environment, rather than viewing sites or contaminants of concern in isolation
- Cultural knowledge adds significant value to technical assessments. Oral histories, traditions and practices contain deep environmental knowledge around hydrology, geology, ecological distributions and health, long term trends and environmental change that pre-dates or may not be captured in conventional datasets alone.
What does that integration interweaving mean for the future of contaminated land practice across the industry — where do you see it heading, and what has to change to get there?
I think the future of contaminated land practice is moving towards a much more holistic understanding of risk. We’re starting to recognise that environmental risk isn’t just about whether a contaminant exceeds a guideline value. It’s also about what that means for ecosystems, cultural practices, community wellbeing, and the legacy we leave for future generations.
To get there, I think a few things need to change. We need to move beyond consultation and towards genuine partnership, bringing indigenous communities into projects early enough to influence outcomes. We need assessment frameworks that can better account for cultural and cumulative effects, not just toxicity and exposure. We also need to become more comfortable working across different knowledge systems and recognising that indigenous knowledge and technical expertise can both contribute valuable insights.
What gives me confidence is that this shift is already happening. The conversations I’ve had in WasteMINZ and ALGA fora showed there is growing interest across the industry in systems thinking, long-term stewardship, and more meaningful integration of indigenous perspectives. For me, the goal isn’t to replace existing practice, it’s to build on it so that our decisions are more informed, more resilient, and ultimately deliver better environmental outcomes.
If you had one piece of advice for regulators or practitioners trying to build genuine partnership into their processes, what would it be?
If I had one piece of advice, it would be to actively look for opportunities to interweave both knowledge systems together from the outset. The strongest outcomes are usually achieved when different perspectives help shape the questions being asked, the risks being considered, and what success looks like.
Just as importantly, organisations need to invest in building capacity. Meaningful collaboration requires capability on both sides: practitioners and regulators need to develop the skills to work confidently across different knowledge systems, while also ensuring indigenous communities have the resources and opportunities to participate fully in technical and regulatory processes. When we focus on both interweaving knowledge and building capability, we create the conditions for genuine collaboration, better decision-making, and more enduring environmental outcomes.
What needs to shift in guidance, training, or industry culture for this kind of integration to become standard practice?
I think it starts with accepting that interweaving indigenous perspectives and knowledge into project outcomes is not the sole role of indigenous practitioners, but needs the support of all disciplines within a project team to meaningfully consider broader environmental, social, cultural, and intergenerational outcomes alongside traditional assessment.
Training and guidance also have an important role to play, lifting the base knowledge of all practitioners and building confidence to work across multiple knowledge systems, as we already do between technical disciplines. This is supported by indigenous communities and practitioners having equitable access to technical and professional development programmes.
This is supported by a cultural shift from seeing western science and indigenous knowledge systems as competing perspectives to seeing them as a complementary, with their own strengths and weaknesses and understanding the context in which they are developed.
What gives you hope that the industry is heading in the right direction, and what’s still holding it back?
The genuine engagement myself and other indigenous practitioners receive when discussing what indigenous informed and led solutions to contaminated land and chemical risk management can provide. There is growing recognition that these perspectives can strengthen decision making and can lead to innovative solutions.
What’s still holding us back is often not a lack of willingness, but a lack of confidence. Many people are concerned about getting it wrong or are unfamiliar with the concepts and perspectives being discussed. That’s completely understandable. My view is that questions asked in the spirit of curiosity, learning, and genuine engagement should always be welcomed. Those conversations are where understanding grows, relationships develop, and better outcomes are achieved. Ultimately, progress happens when people are willing to listen, learn, and explore different ways of thinking about environmental challenges together.
If practitioners and regulators take away just one thing from this feature, what would you want it to be?
The challenges we’re facing, whether that’s emerging contaminants, contaminated land management, or chemical risk assessment, are becoming increasingly complex. No single discipline, perspective, or knowledge system has all the answers. To find the durable, intergenerational solutions we’re looking for, we need to expand our toolbox and draw on all available sources of knowledge and expertise. This will allow us to gain a more complete understanding of risk , opportunity, and long-term consequences. Manaaki whenua, manaaki tāngata, haere whakamua – If we care of the land and the people, we will move forward together.