Listen in to the trailer of Ko Papa, Ko Rangi: Ahi Kaa, you won’t want to stop, “It’s climate adaptation but not as you know it.”

When excavators arrived to break ground on ancestral lands at Ihumaatao in 2019, they were met with unwavering but peaceful defence from the people who had lived there continuously for more than 800 years. The call to stand with ahi kaa in the protection of the land ignited the whole nation.

But 2019 was just a speck on the history of all that has happened at Ihumaatao.

What’s the connection between colonialism and climate change, and how does the story of climate adaptation change when those keeping the home fires burning are telling it?

In 2023, Aotearoa was hit by not one, but two devastating cyclones within weeks of each other. The debris choked waterways and smothered the beaches, leading those who have lived on the land for generations to ask why. In episode 2, we follow the trail of destruction in Te Tairāwhiti back through decades of environmentally disastrous land-use decisions, in a race against time to prepare for future events.

What’s it going to take to clean up the mess of colonisation, and how can those who keep the homefires burning transition to a new/old way of life that benefits both land and people?

Healing from colonisation is a journey of recovery, and it begins with falling in love with home again. In this episode, we travel down the Whanganui river to meet the youngest generation of Indigenous scientists returning to their ancestral lands to keep the homefires burning.

It’s not just about going along and planting some trees. It’s about being prepared to defend that place, right through to the end of your life.

In this final episode, Indigenous researchers from around Aotearoa gather around the home fires at Pikitū in Waikato to share their experience, knowledge, wisdom and strategies for action. With poetry and deep knowing as opposed to “hope”, we reveal how the dreams of ancestors will soon become reality, as the changing climate forces us to reclaim the past in order to thrive in the future.