LUSH and Tāngaro Tuia Te Ora are using soap to raise $10k in funds for the 50 Māui dolphins (Popoto) that remain due to destructive fishing methods.
The store released the limited edition Māui Dolphin soap on 18 June and will donate 75% of all proceeds toward advocacy to stop bottom trawling in the area, the main cause of the species’ decline.
The dolphin is known to be the smallest and rarest dolphin in the world, found only on the West Coast of New Zealand, and known for their curved dorsal fin.
Advocacy and Activism Executive for LUSH Australia and Aotearoa, Jessielee Pearce (Ngā Puhi, Ngāruahine, Ngāti Hine), says the company understands they are “trading on stolen land” and must take action when it comes to issues significant to tangata whenua.
“This is not our whenua...so, we have a moral responsibility as a business who are profiting off sales within Australia and Aotearoa to stand up for indigenous land rights, to stand up for taonga species”, she says.
The Māui dolphin, known as the Popoto, holds significance to Ngāti Te Wehi, who whakapapa to land around Aotea Harbour and have spent decades trying to protect the species.
Pearce says the partnership aims to spark conversations, action, and to educate, and includes a petition in-store that has already amassed over 5,000 signatures.
“This issue has been around for a very long time now, and the general public in Aotearoa don’t know about it, so we’re trying to bring it to light.”
Pearce is also known for her involvement in bringing Te Tiriti soap to stores in 2025 in response to the Treaty Principles Bill.
Petition to stop bottom trawling
Natalie Jessup from Tāngaro Tuia te Ora, the Endangered Species Foundation, says the objective is for the seafood industry to stop bottom trawling across all Māui and Hector’s dolphin habitats.
“We are at a crisis point for these dolphins, and if we don’t do something urgently, we’re going to be one of the first countries in the world to see a dolphin go extinct on our watch”, she says.
“We know that the biggest single driver of their deaths is the destructive fishing practices... with bottom trawling, the nets go down, and they scrape the bottom of the ocean floor, and they basically collect everything in their path”, she says, including food, destroying their habitats, as well as drowning Māui that get accidentally caught in nets.
She says we are the only country still operating a bottom trawl fleet in the high seas of the South Pacific.
“Other countries around the world they’ve stopped this practice, and they’re advocating for greater protections, and New Zealand goes to these international meetings, and we advocate for less protections and more bottom trawling”.
Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Shane Jones, said in a recent statement that 70% of New Zealand’s commercially caught fish are harvested through bottom trawling claiming that the environmental effects of trawling are “contained” and that he supports the industry that “supports regional economies and jobs”.
A recent poll shows New Zealanders may feel differently, as 78 per cent of people said they want it banned from the High Seas area.
Jessup says New Zealand First sees a lot of donations from the industry, which she feels worsens the situation.
“This government has made Shane Jones Minister of Fisheries, his party is taking the donations, and then the policies that we’re seeing coming through are straight from the fishing industry.”
Jessup reports that the camera roll-out on boats by the last Labour government was a help to lowering illegal fishing practices and says she is dismayed that some of it is now being stripped away after funding was slashed for fisheries observers.
“When the cameras got put on the boats, we saw a 700 per cent increase in reported dolphin deaths, so we know that the fishing industry was not reporting accurately. There is more work to be done in this space”.
Conservation across generations
The Apiti whānau from Ngāti Te Wehi have advocated for the Māui dolphin over generations, and now Aotea Apiti says she has been passed the tono from her father, Davis Apiti.
According to their Rangatira, the late Koro Honoti Apiti, when their tupuna travelled from Hawaiki, their waka was guided by a dolphin called Pane-iraira. Apiti says this is where the love and connection to the Māui dolphin stems from.
“For us, the Māui dolphin, it is a part of our whakapapa, a part of our history, it is a part of our identity, and we have a responsibility to protect this taonga just as this taonga protected our tupuna in that time of need”, she says.
Work began when Koro Honoti Apiti, founded Moana Rāhui o Aotea, the environmental arm of the iwi known for its dedication to the Aotea Harbour and marine life. She says the journey, however, hasn’t been easy, and the Māui dolphin has continued to decline since her father’s time, when there were over 100.
“Too often a lot of decisions are made without genuine partnership and without adequately recognising the mana whenua and the mātauranga that we hold that have been passed down from our tupuna.”
“For Moana Rāhui o Aotea, we are this little guy fighting for the interests of our whānau, of our taiao, of our taonga, and we’re against powerful commercial and political entities who are only interested in the bottom line. However, we are grateful to be working alongside our friends at Tāngaro Tuia te Ora and LUSH Aotearoa to fight against a big threat to our taonga - bottom trawling”.
Apiti hopes the partnership will help to end bottom trawling in the area and that a rāhui can be implemented to help marine life regenerate.
“If our species becomes extinct, just the pōuri that I feel... the emotion because you know it’s us, and it’s a part of our whakapapa and we will do whatever we can to protect this taonga of ours”
“When we were in need of help on our voyage to Aotearoa, our taonga was there for us and now it’s our time to be there for our taonga”.
Apiti encourages those interested to support the kaupapa by signing the petition from Tāngaro Tuia te Ora or by purchasing a Māui Dolphin soap from LUSH Aotearoa, with proceeds supporting marine conservation efforts.
