Rose Mayhead

The whenua of Rose Mayhead’s family played a key role in her decision to pursue a Bachelor of Environmental Planning in Te Ara Taiao: Māori and the Environment. 

“My Nan was the last person to be born on our whenua and my Dad is a trustee of our land trust, so that environmental protection was instilled in me early,” says Rose, who attended every annual trust meeting with her father from the age of five. Through those meetings, she realised her interest in environmental planning was one way she could contribute to the conversation about what more her family could do with the land. 

“Environmental planning was the best way to understand the resource management system here in Aotearoa and put it into practice.” 

Backed by a Te Paewai o te Rangi scholarship, a Beca Scholarship and the Luke Dwyer Environmental Planning Prize, Rose enjoyed highlights such as papers on Geographical Information Systems (GIS), where students learnt how to create visual representations of data. One project dealt with flood modelling and how that impacts emergency response routes in Hastings, shortly after the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle. 

“I ended up tutoring a couple of those papers while I was at university; they were really influential for me.” 

Another “phenomenal” paper on Sustainability in Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Contexts, MAORI304, looked at how Indigenous cultures around the world view sustainability and how New Zealand’s planning and resource management practices could change.  

Enrolling in the Te Ara Taiao stream allowed Rose to minor in Te Ao Māori, another passion area. Now working as a Graduate Planner at Beca, she says the Indigenous lens she gained through the degree is helping her engage better with her iwi clients around Aotearoa New Zealand.  

She’s also used her newfound knowledge to reconnect with her whakapapa and further support her whanau in making decisions for their whenua. 

“Last year’s AGM was the first time following my degree where I was able to say – well, what is our vision and how do we prepare for that? We realised we could actually make a change, which has started conversations with different members of the whānau about their aspirations for the land.” 

When asked if she’d recommend the Bachelor of Environmental Planning, her answer was simple: 

Absolutely. If you’re interested in how the world we interact with every day is shaped and designed, it’s such an interesting degree. And being able to learn more about my culture through my studies has been life-changing for me.