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It feels like they're implying rapid climate change killed the moas in less than 200 years, coincidentally right after human arrival. Nothing to do with being h

• musk_micropenis 4y ago
  As a kiwi let me tell you, there's a lot of revisionist history happening with regards to Maori in progressive circles. theconversation.com is a VERY progressive publication.
  • northwest65 4y ago
    That's a polite way of putting it.
  • Gareth321 4y ago
    It's absolutely bizarre. I've got a friend working in healthcare in New Zealand and she was given a mandatory class which taught that "Western science" is "imperialist" and that Maori traditional knowledge is "just as valid." For reference, Maori traditional knowledge is stuff like ghosts (taniwha) and spiritual energy (mana). It's like they're taking the noble savage trope to the craziest ends and just running with it; public outcomes be damned. Some really unhinged ideologues are in positions of power right now.
    • EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Taniwha aren't ghosts, and mana isn't spiritual energy, you've got it confused with mana in computer games. At least go on Wikipedia for five minutes on this stuff, eh?
      • tux2bsd 4y ago
        Taniwha can be considereed ghosts, in that they are creatures from stories - a leprechaun could be considered a ghost for the same reason.
        • EdwardDiego 4y ago
          That's a really long bow to draw.
          • heavenlyblue 4y ago
            So what are they then if that's a really long bow to draw?
            • PuppyTailWags 4y ago
              It makes sense to just call the creature what it is in its cultural context as opposed to trying to put an ill-fitting separate cultural notion on it, imo. If something is a taniwha it's a taniwha, and if someone is curious what a taniwha is they can look it up themselves and understand its a creature from a specific region's folklore. I feel that trying to rename culturally-specific things that don't have a neat translation, like folkloric beings, is generally always poorly fitting. It's like when the qilin is called a unicorn, when a qilin is a fish-scaled deer or ox with lizardly facial features and no affiliation with femininity or maidenhood. So basically almost nothing like a unicorn.
              • tux2bsd 4y ago
                Like I said leprechaun, taniwha, unicorn... all mythical entities - just like ghosts. Isn't it funny how people can draw these various mythical creatures but only after another person has shown them how.
            • tux2bsd 4y ago
              Exactly. It is puzzling that those individuals feel the need to attempt to suppress what they elect not to agree with.
    • lostlogin 4y ago
      Any details on that? Having worked in health in New Zealand in a patient facing role for all my working life, I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ve worked in public, private and research/academic roles.
    • cuteboy19 4y ago
      It's also a slap in the face to non western scientists who ended up contributing despite all odds. Imagine telling Satyendranath Bose that the theory of Bose condensates is just as valid as random tribal animism.
    • smcleod 4y ago
      Any source for this? I am in contact with a number of health science professionals in New Zealand and they haven't seen anything like this or science denial based on race. Generally you tend to see more science denial from the right wing parties such as the NZ National party. I'm not saying labour or for that matter any political party is "good" - but other than homeopathy and friends - science dentist sits pretty firmly on the right.
      • Slava_Propanei 4y ago
        [dead]
    • ihatepython 4y ago
      > Some really unhinged ideologues are in positions of power right now. Yes this may be true, but Jacinda won the election fair and square
    • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      This is like a plain text version of a Facebook meme. It's political correctness gone mad! https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/10/has-political-correctness-gone-too-far https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/10/has-politic... > At best, the notion of political correctness having gone too far is intellectually dishonest; a fallacy similar to a straw-man argument or an ad hominem attack. At worst, it serves as a rallying cry to cover up the excesses of the most illiberal in our society.
  • causi 4y ago
    You don't even need to go into progressive circles. Check out https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/in-new-zealand-conservation-is-buoyed-by-indigenous-knowledge/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/in-new-zealand-conse...
    • cgrealy 4y ago
      And? It's not exactly news that European attitudes and practices don't necessarily work that well when transposed to a different ecosystem. Look at Australia for example. The indigenous people figured out thousands of years ago how to manage native bush. I'm not saying we should replace science with traditional knowledge. But indigenous practices are absolutely worthy of study, and can guide science.
      • causi 4y ago
        Two points: Firstly, the article has zero example of the "native knowledge" in question. Secondly, the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand, arriving a scant couple centuries before Europeans, and had done tremendous damage to the native environment by the time Europeans got there.
        • cgrealy 4y ago
          > Firstly, the article has zero example of the "native knowledge" in question. You mean apart from this link that specifically talks about use tradition harvesting practices and local knowledge to find the kōura to study? https://niwa.co.nz/our-science/freshwater/research-projects/all/restoration-of-aquatic-ecosystems/monitoring_koura/protocol https://niwa.co.nz/our-science/freshwater/research-projects/... > Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand Completely untrue. They are absolutely indigenous to NZ. I'm so tired of this stupid myth being brought up again and again. Yes, Maori arrived in NZ. They were the first people to do so. They are the indigenous people of NZ. Unless you want to argue that to be "indigenous", you literally need to have evolved in that place, which is a nonsense argument as far as humans are concerned.
          • 4y ago
  • peterashford 4y ago
    There's also a lot of reactionary right wing response to anything involving Maori which isn't disparaging or outright racist - as evidenced by the apoplectic reaction from some quarters to merely hearing Maori spoken in the media. A lot of things I hear described as "revisionist" just come down to lack of knowledge of NZ history - eg: claims about "legal" Maori land sales are usually made by people woefully unaware of the actions and conduct of the Maori Land Court.
• godmode2019 4y ago
  The article doesn't say that. It says the settlers could no longer hunt them as it was uneconomical. Its well known Moa were hunted in large numbers until their were none left. They left that out because its common knowledge to the target reader.
  • MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > At the time of settlement, the south had colonies of the large flightless moa. The early settlers rapidly adapted to this temperate climate, living on a diet of moa, seafood and vegetables grown in their garden plots. > But then the Little Ice Age interfered with this lifestyle. After 1350, conditions became significantly colder in the south. By around 1400-1420, moa hunting became uneconomic and put these fledgling communities under immense pressure. Once again, people had to adapt quickly. This is plainly misleading. It implies without explicitly stating that the Little Ice Age interfered with their moa-eating lifestyle by making moa hunting uneconomical.
    • cpleppert 4y ago
      Yeah, I'm confused about the wording here. That is the crux of their entire argument and I would think if they had evidence the Little Ice Age interfered with Mao hunting as opposed to simple overexploitation they would say so.
• justinator 4y ago
  My thought after reading the article is that they were hunted to the brink, and then climate change did them in. Somewhat akin to what also (or may in a few more decades) happen to the American Buffalo. Rich Māori having holding pens for the last of the Moa just for curiosity sake is a funny thought. NZ today is a tough place to stay alive. One of my closest brushes with death happened there in a rapidly rising river that trapped me on a small island for 3 days without a shelter. Once I extracted myself out, the general feeling from the rangers and locals is what happened to me wasn't so rare, except somehow I managed to survived.
  • EdwardDiego 4y ago
    The actual feeling of the rangers and locals would've been "FFS, the weather forecasts are pretty specific, everyone knows heavy rain means floods, but at least we're not searching for your body." Source - former ranger.
  • RowanH 4y ago
    > NZ today is a tough place to stay alive. This might be a low effort reply, but a bunch of us manage too :) In all seriousness every country has it's own unique things that locals are very much familiar with and outsiders it's just foreign to. Australia - predisposed to critters that want to kill you. Checking your shoes for spiders is a thing. America - well I'll leave the obvious out, but there's some pretty nasty deserts you'd not want to be caught out in, or the odd cat 4 Tornado, or my favourite from last visit, walking past a tree that had head high claw marks all through it (either Cougar or Bear, wtf, that was like a 20min walk from the hotel in boulder!!) Then there's Canada -40c anyone? That's really not meant for human survival.
  • RileyJames 4y ago
    Having moved from Australia to New Zealand, I’d say the opposite. There’s nothing here that can kill you. No bushfires. No snakes. Very few sharks. Spiders are rare, and white tails don’t kill. It doesn’t get hot enough to kill you. There’s water everywhere, but it doesn’t seem to flood. I’m assuming your rising river was on the South Island. Definitely plenty of opportunities to get yourself in trouble down there, but you’d have to go well out of your way. Earthquakes are the only new danger, and they’re mostly in the south / Wellington. No crocodiles. No camels (car accidents). Both countries have bikie/gang violence, but I’m not sure that’s a real danger for gen pop.
• tux2bsd 4y ago
  Simply hunted to extinction. It's a shame history is being rewritten in front of our eyes.
• peterashford 4y ago
  That implication wasn't clear to me, from reading the article.