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Dame Anne Salmond is an eminent writer and social scientist who is internationally recognised for her work since the 1970s on cross-cultural exchanges and environmental matters.
Dame Anne is a Distinguished Professor of Maori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, where she was also Pro-Vice Chancellor (Equal Opportunity) from 1997 to 2006. She has been Vice President (Social Sciences and Humanities) of the Royal Society of New Zealand and in 2013 was the first social scientist to be awarded the Rutherford Medal. She has written a series of prize-winning books that focus on what happens when people from different cultures encounter and engage with each other. Her works include three early books about contemporary Māori life, two that explore early exchanges between Māori and Europeans, and three about the European exploration of the Pacific, focusing on Captain Cook, Tahiti and Captain Bligh respectively. She has also written about climate change, the restoration of rivers, forests and the ocean. She has had a lifelong engagement with te ao Māori, working alongside kuia and kaumātua and presenting evidence in the Muriwhenua Land and Fisheries Treaty claims, the Ngāpuhi claim for Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the first test case of the Treaty clause of the Resource Management Act. She is Chairperson of the Longbush Ecological Trust and the patron of a number of environmental and community organisations. Since 2014 she has been a member of the Air New Zealand Sustainability Panel, and led Te Awaroa: Voice of the River project restoring rivers across New Zealand. She was Chair of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Board from 2001 to 2007 and a member of the boards of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Museum of New Zealand. Since 2017 Dame Anne has hosted the Māori TV documentary series ‘Artefact’.
HONOURS
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, New Year 1995
Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Queen’s Birthday 1988