This week on The Green Desk, Bronwyn Wilde spoke to Dr Kēpa Morgan about mauri modelling  - a framework for decision-making which measures sustainability trends.   Unlike a purely economic view of sustainability, the model recognises four dimensions of wellbeing,  environmental, cultural, social and economic. Kēpa first invented the mauri-o-meter in his 2008 thesis about municipal waste water management, but since then it has been applied throughout the country to a number of ecosystems, including the clean-up following the Rena oil spill. Bronwyn and Kēpa spoke about the model, how it compliments and even improves on western science, and why we value certain knowledge over others.

He began by shedding some light on the concept of  "mauri".