New Zealand is well positioned to commit to the development, implementation and upholding of a national strategy on emerging contaminants (EC’s). Two components were deemed central to development and possible adoption of the EC strategy. Firstly, raising awareness of the issues of ECs and designing an approach to prevent, reduce, or mitigate their effects. Secondly, to follow an approach that recognised Aotearoa-NZ's Te Tiriti o Waitangi responsibilities and included elements like co-development and ensuring that Māori engagement and Māori knowledge and experience was core to the strategy.
This initiative was centred around the premise of ‘Patua te taniwha kei tamariki tonu’ (assail the leviathan whilst it is young) or simply: address issues early before they become large and problematic. This call to action emerged as a mechanism of coalescing goals, mutual learning and invigorating future direction for the development of the strategy.
We describe the journey in the development of a strategy to guide management of EC’s within a bi-cultural context and outline the benefits and opportunities that a founding document can provide. Further, we talk about how it was influenced by a Te Ao Māori (Māori world view) perspective and reflect on how successful our co-development approach was, along with the challenges of implementing a national strategy without clear central government ownership.