Merata Kawharu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merata Kawharu | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kawharu in 2025 | |
| Relatives | Hugh Kāwharu (father) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Thesis | Dimensions of Kaitiakitanga: an investigation of a customary Maori principle of resource management (1998) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Māori culture |
| Sub-discipline | Kaitiakitanga |
| Institutions | University of Auckland University of Otago |
Merata Kawharu MNZM FRSNZ is a New Zealand Māori writer and academic. She has been a member of government boards and committees including the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and the Māori Heritage Council, the New Zealand Geographic Board and advisor to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Ministry of Māori Development, the Climate Change Commission and the Ministry for the Environment. Her doctoral research was on the concept of kaitiakitanga (or guardianship) within Māori culture and law. She has led large science programmes on climate adaptation,[1] food economies and entrepreneurship models, looking at how western science, technology and Māori knowledge systems and science can be brought together with community leadership to address pressing environmental, social or economic challenges.
In January 2024, she was appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor Māori at Lincoln University.[2]
In 2025 Kawharu was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
Affiliating to the Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi iwi,[3] she is the daughter of Sir Hugh Kawharu.[4]
