railsagainst

Just to be clear, its actually the bird itself I care about. I think its identity is something that deserves respect and shouldn't just be randomly adopted by someone who thinks it is cool. I am glad that some Māori people are asserting a degree of hegemony over the use of NZ names and identities and I appreciate their intent. If you think this is ridiculous, just try and call your technology product Walmart, Amazon, The Warehouse or even the All Blacks and see what happens.

What makes you think I don't, mate?

I have come here to rail against (pun intended) the use of the name Takahē for a piece of software. The author is well-intentioned and there is some aptness to the name, but many people here in Aotearoa / New Zealand, are sensitive to the use of the names of our tāonga / treasures for businesses, technologies and other objects. Specifically, the takahē is an indigenous species tāonga as described in https://www.taiuru.maori.nz/branding/. As such it would be best to consult with the Ngāi Tahu people before using the takahē’s name in this manner. In this link from NZ’s Department of Conservation (https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2021-media-relea...), you can see that NZers take this sort of iwi partnership seriously.

More broadly, I find it sad when the the names of natural species and features are adopted in the business and technology world without any deep connection. A canonical case would be Amazon the company, which has prospered and become a household name while the Amazon itself, with its people and ecosystems has suffered and declined. An egregious case relevant to NZ is Kiwi Farms.

The trend of using species names in technology perhaps started with the O’Reilly books. The argument can be raised that such use raises awareness of endangered species such as the takahē. But perhaps that is best left to other means, for fear that the mauri of a species should be captured and harmed.