Te Kete Kōrero o Ōhinemutu: the story of a cultural mapping tool

Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) is often called the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand. Although Te Tiriti o Waitangi is referenced in resource management and planning legislation, current spatial planning practices are less than responsive to Māori (the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) aspirations or ways of knowing. There have been calls to revise spatial planning practices beyond consultation , and to foster Māori-led initiatives informed by traditional knowledge. A variety of institutional web-based geospatial tools have been developed at the national level to assist Māori with spatial planning. However, examples of communities developing their own spatial planning tools are rare. This article presents and discusses the findings of a collaborative research project with Ōhinemutu village in Rotorua, North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. This research is part of an international movement fostering bicultural and Indigenous-led planning through the co-creation of geospatial tools.