Meet the Tāngata Whenua Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty!
With the UN global plastics treaty negotiations now well underway, it is vital that Indigenous Peoples are at the decision-making table.
The Tāngata Whenua Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty (TWC) is a collective of Māori plastic pollution experts including community leaders, educators, scientists, businesspeople, and researchers, who are committed to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and ensuring the full and meaningful participation and representation of Tāngata Whenua throughout the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty (GPT) process.
The TWC’s mahi involves attending and informing INC negotiations, submission writing, and holding hui as Tāngata Whenua and rights/knowledge holders internally, with Tāngata Tiriti Allies and with the NZ government, as well as the Indigenous People’s INC Working Group, Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, and Plastic Treaty Coalition.
Matt Peryman, TWC Coordinator, describes our focus as being “on a high ambition approach to the plastics treaty that safely and appropriately incorporates Indigenous peoples, worldviews, sciences and knowledge systems and ensures support for Indigenous and other frontline communities through the GPT process.
The TWC’s approach prioritises human and Taiao wellbeing over the current status quo in policy making that is influenced by industry and riddled with the promotion of false solutions like incineration and waste to energy, and greenwashed ideas like a ‘circular economy for plastics’.
It is vital that we address the upstream causes of plastic pollution, which is the overproduction and forced normalisation of plastics promoted by the petrochemical industry, while supporting and investing in true solutions like redesign, reuse, refill, and repair systems.”
The TWC is open to other Māori plastic pollution experts interested in working on the GPT, get in touch!
→ Matt Peryman (TWC Coordinator) mjperyman@gmail.com
