Mate Ururoa – Tenacity in the face of climate horrors

NEWS/INTERVIEW | ISSUE THIRTEEN | SPOOKY

An interview with Mike Smith by Maeva Moelagi Jackson-Becerra (she/her) | @maeva_moelagi |

Contributing Writer

It is easy to feel bogged down as the existential threats of environmental disaster and climate change loom over us. To counteract this doomerism, I spoke to a Māori climate activist with experience, advice, and hope to give us all. 

Mike Smith (Ngāti Kahu, Ngāpuhi) is an activist who has been fighting for the environment since 1992. He worked on a prolific legal case to sue Fonterra, our largest polluter, and other corporations for environmental harm. In August, the government fast-tracked a law to stop Smith’s legal action, and now Aotearoa has the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Bill. This is the first law in the world that bans public lawsuits against corporations for environmental damage, and it is cooked. 

I interviewed Mike about the salience of this government action, the role of youth in effecting change, and the motivation behind his staunch activism.

Maeva: Can you tell me where your environmentalism journey started? 

Mike Smith: I was brought up in a cultural environment that instructed us to care for the things around us, the moana, ngāhere, creatures within them, the birds. We were instructed as children that we had a responsibility to take care of nature. 

That foundation came from childhood, really, from my parents, from our cultural heritage.

We are Māori, we came here from the islands. When you come from a small island, there’s only a certain amount of resources available to you. So you can’t just trash them and use them all up and be greedy. 

Maeva: How did it feel as an activist for the government to shut down the Smith v. Fonterra case?

Mike Smith: As an activist, you’re involved in a struggle. We’re pushing and we get pushed back against as well. 

I had two court cases, one was against the big companies that were doing the pollution. And the second one was against the government for not doing enough to prevent that from happening. 

When the government shut down the first case, we immediately had the second one. 

What they've done by shutting down the first case was just a graphic example of the government failing to protect us from climate harm. 

So how did we feel when they shut down the first one? Not despondent. Not frustrated. Because we knew that we were involved in activism. It’s a long road. It’s a long struggle. It takes time. And so we were prepared for it. 

Maeva: Do you have any encouraging words for young people to continue being active in environmental protection?

Mike Smith: If our example is anything to go by, never give up. We’ve got an expression in te ao Māori, which is ‘mate ururoa,’ to die like a hammerhead shark who keeps fighting even after it’s dead. We adopt that type of attitude to what we do, mate ururoa. 

My message to young people is to be part of the solution. If you’re not, you’re part of the problem. Governments are getting away with what they’re doing and they rely upon people being docile, being complacent, and being stuck in a sort of inertia where they don’t do anything. 

This is your world, this is your life, this is your future. So you’ve got to be in it. 

Maeva: What is your view on other fast-tracked decisions that the government has put through?

Mike Smith: Fundamentally, that sort of indecent haste is because the current economic system is based on greed and just no responsibility for the future.

Everything turns into a commodity. Forests stop being the home of creatures and become wood products to be turned into something, to be cut down and given a price. 

Hasty law is bad law because you’ve just got people that are looking for money charging ahead and not listening to anybody else.  

Maeva: Just a few rapidfire questions on your favourite parts of Aotearoa’s environment. 

Do you have a favourite bird?

Mike Smith: I like a bird called takapu (gannet). They dive from the sky and when they come down, they fold their wings up like an arrow and bomb the water. When we’re fishing out on the water, if we’re sitting over the schools of fish, those birds dive down all around us, and it’s like it’s raining birds. They’re really beautiful. 

Maeva: What is your favourite beach?

 Mike Smith: I like the Paringaringa Harbour up in the far north, because it’s white silica sand, like up in the islands. It’s so white that it’ll burn your eyes out on a bright day. It’s startlingly white, and there’s very few beaches like that in Aotearoa.

Maeva: Do you have a favourite tree?

Mike Smith: I like nikau palms, I like tupakahi, which is a shrub that can fix broken bones and strains.

I mean, it’s one big family. It’s like, which one of your kids do you like the best? I like all of them, all for different reasons.

Maeva: Where is your favourite place to be with your family? 

Mike Smith: I like being at Whangaroa Harbour. That’s our harbour. Its isolation has meant that it’s been able to be kept reasonably free from pollution and exploitation. So that’s our happy place we go to as a family.