02-06-2025
Birds of a feather: Sarah Rewi brings together Mātauranga Māori and science for the muttonbird
Ruffling feathers in all the right ways is Sarah Rewi, a young researcher blending Mātauranga Māori and Western science through her work studying the muttonbird in Aotearoa New Zealand.
With a Master's and soon-to-be PhD under her wing, Sarah shared with Nesia Daily that her inspiration for studying seabirds initially began at her aunty's dinner table when she was served her favourite dish: muttonbird.
"I was kind of sitting in my undergraduate studies and we were being shown all this research about how they test our fisheries in New Zealand to make sure that our snapper and prawns, and all of these things are safe for us to eat," she said.
"And that kind of led me down a path of Indigenous food sovereignty harvesting practices, and who's actually looking out for the health of our communities from that kind of long-term scientific perspective?"
As Sarah soon found out, the answer was "no one".
Sarah's research focuses on three species of the muttonbird - the tītī (shaggy shearwater), the ōi (grey faced petrel), and the toanui (flesh-footed shearwater). ( Supplied )
Often there is tension between Western ideas of conservation and Indigenous practices, a gap the young Māori academic is trying to bridge with her research.
"They think that our practices are a threat to these communities, but from our side, it's our way of honouring our relationship with these birds.
"A conservation approach is - we look, we don't touch, we build fences around their habitats and try to keep rats away - and that's all we do.
"But when I spoke with a lot of my whanau and communities through my research, there was this pain of being separated from a relative, of having a connection to a part of ourselves cut off for generations, and a desire to see those harvesting practices brought back."
Sarah Rewi (right) and her fellow researchers. ( Supplied )
As part of her PhD with the University of Auckland, Sarah is examining how seabirds like the muttonbird are able to shed toxins and heavy metals from the ocean through their feathers.
However, with pollution and anthropogenic activities causing extremely high levels of mercury, lead, and zinc in the ocean, the concern is that "the next few generations of birds may not be as successful at removing very high concentrations of very toxic metals".
"Of course, the concern for our Indigenous communities is are we consuming those metals which are very poisonous?"
Beyond her PhD, Sarah's long-term goal is to open up a Māori-led research centre and have "the knowledge and resources return to our communities".
"To be able to have our own people that understand the context of our relationship with these birds in those spaces, I think will yield very unique solutions and research."
