SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE Transforming geographies: Performing Indigenous-M aori ontologies and ethics of more-than-human care in an era of ecological emergency Amanda Monehu Yates School of Future Environments, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand Correspondence Amanda Monehu Yates, School of Future Environments, Auckland University of Technology, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. Email: amanda.yates@aut.ac.nz Funding information New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ) Abstract This paper explores how spatial governance models oriented to the well-being of the more-than-human might better enable Indigenous peoples' capacity to live-well-with and care for our more-than-human whanaunga (kin). The discussion positions Indigenous more-than-human ontologies as a cultural framework that supplants human-centrism with a focus on holistic ecological well-being. The paper considers how a culture of holistic ecological well-being might be spatially emplaced through well-being-led planning tools that ground these ontologies in neighbourhoods, cities and wider afield. Currently settler- colonial spatial governance and planning structures hold dominion in Aotearoa New Zealand, inscribing cultural territories fundamentally other to Indigenous norms. Yet the country's Te Tiriti o Waitangi contracts for tino rangatiratanga (M aori sovereignty), and to meet the Tiriti it is imperative that current spatial governance approaches swiftly converge with Indigenous ethi- cal practices for mauri ora holistic well-being. There is much at stake. The Pet- rocene—our current era of ecological breakdown, accelerated by a rapacious petrocapitalism—is a time of mass death of our more-than-human whanaunga (kin). KEYWORDS ecological emergency, ethics of care, holistic well-being, Indigenous ontology, more-than- human, spatial governance, transformative tools 1 | INTRODUCTION In discussing spatial governance and planning geogra- phies in Aotearoa New Zealand, Indigenous ontologies and ethics for ecological care are positioned as normative in this paper. The term spatial governance is used here to describe a particular form of governance, as analysis, decision-making, strategy generation, legislation and actions that together enact a socio-cultural system of planning, building and land-based activities more broadly. The research described explores normalising care for the more-than-human within terrestrial dis- courses such as geography, spatial governance and plan- ning. In the nearly 200 years since the establishment of a settler state, colonial cultural norms have disrupted, determined and defined the territories of our everyday lives, our homes, our neighbourhoods, our cities and rural–urban landscapes. How do we begin to transform these colonised geographies and improve the holistic well-being of our more-than-human whanaunga (kin)? What changes are required in spatial governance systems—in ontological frame, in land-use legislation, in Received: 6 July 2021 Accepted: 8 July 2021 DOI: 10.1111/nzg.12302 N Z Geog. 2021;77:101–113. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nzg © 2021 New Zealand Geographical Society. 101