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Co-governance, and to a lesser extent for this case, co-management, play a pivotal role in the management of Lake Ellesmere and so could play a similar role in other CPR

management situations. The co-governance agreement between ECan and Ngai Tahu has been shown to take precedence over the co-management agreement between DoC and Ngai Tahu. DoC does not make specific statutory policy, per se, on the major issues in the region, whereas ECan does. It would be much more beneficial to Ngai Tahu to be heavily involved with policy making rather than just planning and carrying out lake restoration. On this level, co-governance/management relationships can take precedence over one another, possibly moving the relevance of one below the other. If a Treaty partner can ‘go over the head’ of one of their co-management partners, there is less incentive to focus their efforts at the management level.

This is consistent with the definitions explored in the Theoretical Context, as co-governance involves the sharing of power, with which much more can be achieved for the non-

governmental partner than through an agreement to merely work together on a management strategy not contingent on power sharing, like the JMP.

The weight of the co-governance agreement draws with it several other factors. One major issue within the CPR is that of entitlement, which was addressed by the Settlement Act and handed partial ownership of the lake bed to Ngai Tahu. This ownership, in the western sense, provides further entitlements to the runanga surrounding the Lake that other stakeholders do not have, nor could they obtain. These entitlements put Ngai Tahu in a strategic position to influence policy surrounding the Lake. However, the entitlement awarded to Ngai Tahu does come with the responsibility of being a producer within the CPR and to add to the resource and maintain it. This could come in different forms. Ngai Tahu and its runanga also have more to lose than others who may not share their entitlement advantages because of their ownership and responsibility surrounding the lake bed. It also puts them more at risk to the effects of free-riders in the CPR like those non-point source polluters who may be taking advantage of the resource. DoC also owns lands along the Lake

105 margins, although their entitlements are different from Ngai Tahu’s. The awarding of

entitlements within a CPR is a defining characteristic and like a unique environment, will often result in a unique management scheme.

Institutions within a CPR, especially as Agrawal (2003) discusses their ability to benefit from a changed social setting, are also affected by co-governance. This effect comes in the form of acknowledgement through the government side involved in the co-governance (or co- management) agreement. Co-governance plays a part in favouring one group over the others within a CPR. In the case of Lake Ellesmere, the acknowledgement and awarding of governance rights to the tangata whenua placed their institutions in a better position to have an impact, for better or worse, on the Lake and its environs. This is not to say that other institutions surrounding dairying or fisheries, for example, do not play a role. They must come about their influence in a different way than the tangata whenua because they do not have a co-governance agreement, nor in this situation, is there a Treaty-like or LGA requirement to develop one on their behalf. Without such an agreement, groups other than the tangata whenua must come by their influence in other ways.

The reasons for the difference in influence come in two forms. The Selwyn/Waihora Zone is uniquely affected by the Treaty in a way that is not present in other zones. First, the number of runanga in the area translates to a larger presence on the ZC. Although it is a consensus approach based on collaboration, the number of runanga representatives, as well as the presence of a commissioner with runanga ties, certainly puts this Zone in a unique place of a majority of ZC members being Ngai Tahu. On top, or more to the side, of that

representation, sits the actual co-governance agreement between ECan and Ngai Tahu. This agreement has shown through interviews especially, but so too in document analysis and observation, to operate outside of the Zone Committee process even though it is called for in the CWMS. The figurative location and autonomy of the agreement affects the nesting of the management scheme that exists within Canterbury.

In this way, and as previously seen in the Nested Governance principle, co-governance also affects CPR management strategies that include a nested governance system. Furthermore, in the case of Lake Ellesmere, though presumably not in all cases, the nesting of different governance levels is disturbed by the presence of a co-governance agreement.

A co-management agreement with the necessary amounts of power sharing could also act in a similar way. This is not a result of the agreement in and of itself, rather a lack of full

106 inclusion of that agreement into the nested system. This lack of inclusion allows the co- governance agreement to operate often on its own terms (or sometimes, unknown terms) and as interviews offered, the relationship with the ZC is still not fully understood. If the co- governance was included in the nesting in a more integrated fashion, or a better nesting of Maori water governance was included within the region, its role would be better understood and its power could be checked in a similar way that Zone Committees are expected to act as a check on the Water Executive.

The multiple ‘co-agreements’ in which Ngai Tahu are engaged provide Ngai Tahu with different advantages. Currently, the agreement with ECan seems to be favoured as feelings of disenfranchisement from DoC have been mentioned in interviews. Previously, it seemed that the JMP was given more attention when it came to opposing the Lake Opening consent. This suggests strategic manoeuvring when it comes to such partnership relationships, all aimed at enhancing, or recovering, indigenous power. However, there may be a point where multiple agreements concerning the management of the Lake become too many.

Disenfranchising a Treaty partner could cause a negative effect on the management of a CPR. Moreover, Marshall (2008) has previously critiqued the inefficiencies and confusion created by a nested governance regime that resulted in repetitiveness and multiple plans directed at the same issue. Those concerns may well apply here unless there is consolidation and better integration.

Revisiting Berkes’ (1994) figure of co-management hierarchy, we can see in Figure 23 that both Ngai Tahu agreements fall in different places on the scale. Although this is designed as a co-management scale, it can be applied with co-governance in this sense to compare the two agreements. The JMP agreement has little power sharing and yet remains a joint effort. This falls squarely above the ‘joint action’ hierarchy as described by Berkes. The co-

governance agreement involves regional government and in effect, removes some of the community from participating, while elevating one sector to near-governmental status. For this reason, it is lower on the actual co-management scale. If Ngai Tahu were the entire community, then the agreement would be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

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Figure 23: A hierarchy of co-management arrangements surrounding Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora, adapted from Berkes (1994)