Taonga governance & ethical innovation: Building a kaitiaki-led access & benefit-sharing system for taonga from Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This project began as an investigation into the implications of the Nagoya Protocol and related international frameworks for Māori ownership, access and benefit-sharing (ABS) in relation to indigenous organisms in Aotearoa New Zealand. It evolved into a broader exploration of Indigenous governance, taonga species coordination, ethical commercialisation systems, mechanisms for exercising shared rangatiratanga rights and responsibilities, and the practical infrastructure required to support Treaty-consistent biodiscovery in Aotearoa.

This report identifies two fundamental gaps in Aotearoa’s emerging biodiscovery system. The first is the absence of practical mechanisms through which kaitiaki can exercise shared rights and responsibilities in relation to taonga species, ecosystems, mātauranga Māori and innovation. The second is the absence of institutions capable of representing the interests of taonga themselves within research, investment, commercialisation and governance arrangements.

The work occurred during a period of major national transition. During the life of the project, the Government committed NZ$42.8 million toward the Biodiscovery Platform led by the Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI). Project participants contributed actively to the Platform’s development, and to Te Puni Kōkiri’s options for a biodiscovery framework and ABS policy work as part of the Government’s response to WAI 262. That policy process, which reached the stage of a discussion document ready for public consultation, appears to have been placed on hold at the end of 2025.

This combination of significant investment in biodiscovery infrastructure alongside a stalled regulatory framework creates a policy contradiction and defines the challenge addressed by this report.

The project identified persistent weaknesses across Aotearoa’s biodiscovery ecosystem, including fragmented governance, weak institutional coordination, inconsistent engagement with kaitiaki, limited practical ABS mechanisms, severe capability shortages, and the absence of coherent infrastructure for coordinating Indigenous governance interests. These findings were independently reinforced through Biodiscovery Platform design work and by the Indigenous Biodiscovery Wānanga held in March 2026, which brought together researchers, kaitiaki, entrepreneurs and policymakers to explore the future of Indigenous-led biodiscovery.

A central finding of the project is that existing governance arrangements provide no consistent mechanism through which multiple kaitiaki groups with overlapping interests can exercise shared rights and responsibilities. The emerging taonga trust network and Te Pūnaha Taonga, an online platform designed to facilitate engagement by all groups associated with a taonga, provide the foundation for a system capable of coordinating shared authority, managing overlapping interests, supporting responsible research and commercialisation, and ensuring that rights, responsibilities and benefits remain connected to the communities from which taonga and mātauranga originate. An independent Māori-led Competent National Authority operating within a sphere-of-authority framework could provide the national architecture within which these mechanisms operate.

The project also highlights the emergence of taonga governance entities as a potentially significant institutional innovation. Entities established to act in the interests of taonga species and their ecosystems provide a practical mechanism through which the interests of taonga can participate directly within research, investment, commercialisation and benefitsharing arrangements. Rather than remaining external stakeholders, these entities can become enduring participants in the biodiscovery system itself.

The emerging kānuka industry provides a practical case study of this approach. The Hikurangi Bioactives Limited Partnership royalty model – allocating almost equal profit shares to investors, communities of origin, and activities intended to benefit the taonga itself – demonstrates a practical expression of commercial benefit-sharing in Aotearoa. The Kānuka Charitable Trust’s work on certification, industry standards and landowner engagement illustrates the kind of collective infrastructure that could be supported at scale through the Biodiscovery Platform for other taonga-derived products and sectors.

Aotearoa is at a genuine inflection point. While the absence of a legislated ABS regime remains a critical gap, the larger opportunity identified in this report is the creation of practical mechanisms through which Indigenous communities can exercise shared rights and responsibilities, and through which the interests of taonga can be represented within innovation systems. The emergence of taonga governance entities, Te Pūnaha Taonga, and the Biodiscovery Platform collectively create a unique opportunity to build governance arrangements unlike any currently operating elsewhere in the world.

Whether the outcome is a coherent, Treaty-consistent biodiscovery system that provides for the interests of both people and taonga, or a fragmented and partial one, will depend on decisions made now about governance architecture, legislative foundations, the exercise of kaitiaki authority, commercial structures, capability investment and accountability.