Kiingi Tuuheitia (front) opens the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award exhibition at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery in May last year. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Kiingi Tuuheitia will attend the inaugural meeting of Traditional Pacific Leaders in Hawai'i in June where climate change and environmental protection are likely to be at the top of discussions.
Kiingitanga chief of staff Ngira Simmonds said the King met with Ariki from Fiji, Samoa, and Hawai'i earlier this year to discuss their role in a world impacted by climate change and the meeting would be a continuation of those discussions.
"What the Kiingitanga is looking for is how our indigenous solutions can be embraced as solutions for everybody, and not just seen as indigenous solutions that might be a nice addition or a nice frame to a wider context."
Māori could share their insights on how climate change will affect island communities from their experience going through the cultural upheaval of urban drift, he said.
"Another reality of climate change is the impact on culture, as we see for different Pacific islands the rising sea levels and the moving and displacing of communities, those communities have to shift and live somewhere else.
"And what we know from our experiences having seen the urban drift through New Zealand is when those communities shift it brings to life a whole different series of issues around language, identity, culture."
The King would also present the recently signed declaration seeking legal personhood for whales for consideration by other Pacific leaders at the meeting, Simmonds said.
The declaration - He Whakaputanga Moana, signed by Kiingi Tuuheitia and Tou Travel Ariki, head of House Ariki in the Cook Islands, aims to give tohorā more robust protections that are recognised internationally.
Simmonds said they were in discussions to hold another signing ceremony during the meeting in Hawai'i.
"A big kaupapa for the ocean declaration is the leading voice being the indigenous voice, so the first point of contact is the indigenous leaders in those respective nations."
Relationships between the Kiingitanga and traditional Pacific leaders were reciprocal and had been important since the time of Te Puea, Simmonds said.
There was an element of whanaungatanga (kinship) among the Ariki of the Pacific, he said.
"Particularly for Kiingi Tuuheitia when he sees a lot of these leaders he thinks of their parents, he thinks of his mother and those long-standing, enduring relationships that have gone on for generations and that's often at the forefront of conversations.
"At the heart of these relationships for, not all, but many of these Ariki is our shared experience with colonisation and western forms of governance."
The meeting coincides with the annual Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC), which the King will also attend in his capacity as Patron of Te Matatini.
Simmonds said prior to Covid-19, Kiingi Tuuheitia was a regular attendee at FestPAC as was his late mother, Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu.
The King was looking forward to attending alongside his whānau and Te Matatini champions Te Whānau a Apanui, he said.
"Another dimension for the leaders gathering and FestPac this year is there is an emerging young leaders gathering happening at the same time as all of this, and the King's daughter Te Puhi Ariki Ngāwai Hono i te Pō has been asked to take a leading role in gathering the young leaders of all of the 27 nations who are attending FestPac," Simmonds said.
