MĀORI WARDENS, Whakaata Māori, Monday, March 27, 8.30pm; PATHFINDERS, TVNZ1, Sunday, March 26, 10.00am
“It’s secret what we do, actually. Because nobody really knows what a Māori warden does,” says Dan Philips, a warden for 36 years, in Susan Leonard’s documentary. He’s joking, but he’s not really wrong.
All of us have seen them, perhaps in outlines the long – and in recent years, troubled – story of the volunteer service that has resolved a thousand conflicts but struggles to deal with its own hōhā.