Pūtaiao 92072 - Kete Manarua / TAPā: Impact assessment and justified decisions
Pūtaiao 92072 asks you to assess the impact of human activity and justify a response. In the Kete Manarua / TAPā framing, evidence from science and from place-based knowledge must be connected to people, values and decisions. A strong answer evaluates, rather than simply describes.
Core rules and concepts
- Define a baseline before claiming an impact. Compare against it using magnitude, duration, reversibility, spatial scale and cumulative effects.
- Distinguish direct effects from indirect effects, and identify feedbacks that may amplify or reduce change.
- Identify stakeholders and criteria: ecological, cultural, social and economic. Kaitiakitanga can be used as an intergenerational criterion, but explain what it requires in the case.
- Make the recommendation follow from the criteria and evidence. If uncertainty remains, use a conditional recommendation with monitoring thresholds.
Worked example
A rohe considers a marina. Baseline: 60% seagrass cover and a shellfish harvest of 30 kg per week. Predicted effects: 15% seagrass loss from shading, construction sediment, local jobs, and changed access to kaimoana. Reasoning: shading is a direct effect; sediment is indirect and cumulative with existing runoff. A no-marina option protects seagrass but loses jobs. A full marina maximises jobs but risks the harvest and cultural access. A smaller marina with a sediment buffer and monitoring triggers is chosen because it reduces the worst seagrass loss while allowing some jobs; the trade-off is that monitoring must be funded and thresholds enforced. That is a justified decision, not a compromise label.
Traps that cost marks
- Giving a one-sided answer that ignores jobs or cultural access.
- Claiming mitigation removes an impact rather than reducing it.
- Omitting the baseline or cumulative effects.
- Hiding values behind “the science says”.
- Recommending action without linking it to named criteria.