Climate change and resource pressures

48. Environmental pressures are clear drivers of future change both on a global and domestic scale. Key global environmental drivers of economic change with a particular impact on Māori include climate change and fossil fuel depletion. Key domestic drivers with a particular impact on Māori include potential fisheries depletion, and water use and quality.
49. Climate change impacts will be a challenge for Māori given the economic concentration of Māori businesses in the agriculture and fishing sectors. Adapting to climate change will require the uptake of new technologies to mitigate and withstand potential climate-related shocks. Additionally, Māori producers will increasingly need to position their products as genuinely “clean and green”, in order to keep and grow the share of the export market in these sectors. Conversely, opportunities will arise for Māori in developing and promoting new technologies or moving traditional agricultural sectors into alternative production systems (for example, cropping for bio fuels).