A controversial trademark ruling last July allowing Australian honey producers to market their product as Manuka Honey may have to be revisited after a new scientific study found the Aussie Manuka is a different species from the New Zealand Mānuka.
Honey marked as Manuka Honey sells for significantly higher prices than ordinary honey because of its perceived health benefits.
Last year the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand ruled against letting the Mānuka Honey Appellation Society register the term “Manuka Honey” as a certification trademark in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Registration would have allowed the society to exclusively use the Manuka Honey name (without the tohutō (macron) over the ‘a’) when marketing honey made from the nectar of the mānuka (Leptospermum scoparium) plant. Honey producers in Australia opposed registration.
The Intellectual Property Office concluded the average consumer would not find the proposed Manuka Honey mark distinctive. That term had been used extensively by both New Zealand and Australian honey producers before the application was lodged in 2015.
Assistant Commissioner of Trade Marks Natasha Alley said she “carefully considered” the taonga status of Mānuka, in addition to tikanga Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi in deciding the case. Alley also acknowledged the “critical importance” of Māori intellectual property rights.
No mention in Trade Marks Act
But she concluded these factors did not outweigh the “clear provisions” of the Trade Marks Act, which does not require IPONZ to consider the taonga status of kupu or plants, or the existence of mātauranga Māori, when evaluating certification mark applications.
Now Mānuka Charitable Trust chair Pita Tipene says the research “provides further evidence of what we have been saying all along - that Mānuka is a recognised taonga under the Treaty of Waitangi, and its honey can only be sourced from and produced in Aotearoa New Zealand”.
“Mānuka is a Māori word and tree that belongs to us. The expropriation of the name ‘Mānuka Honey’ to a plant or natural product from outside Aotearoa New Zealand is taking the identity and associated epistemology of our culture – our knowledge and what we know and believe.
“It belongs to us and it is being taken and used in a way that’s misleading. What’s more, it’s ignoring the original names developed over thousands of years of history of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia,” Tipene said.
The study said the results supported mānuka as a single endemic New Zealand species with marked geographic provenances with significant gene flow and variation largely due to environmental conditions.
Clear separation
The researchers noted the results had significant cultural and commercial implications, especially for products derived from each species, including honey.
The researchers analysed 2,000 variable DNA markers called ‘SNiPs’ (single DNA letter changes) in the DNA from each plant from both New Zealand and Tasmania.
The research, undertaken by Plant & Food Research, was peer reviewed by three independent international scientists.
“Genetic testing of Mānuka previously had shown that there was a difference between those trees in New Zealand and those in Australia, so we wanted to understand more about the extent of these differences,” Dr David Chagné said.
“Analysing more than 2,000 points across the genome showed a clear separation between the two countries, with more than nine million years since there was any real crossover between them. Whilst there are several distinct clusters in New Zealand, these have the normal genetic spread you’d expect from families spread across a wide geographic area. The two Australian clusters, while related to each other, are vastly different, and could potentially be genetically classified as different species.”
Diverged millions of years ago
UMF Honey Association chair Rob Chemaly said origin mattered because people bought ‘Mānuka honey’ as they saw the value in origin and terroir, particularly when it came to natural products.
“Evidence supports the distinct health benefits of honey that comes from New Zealand’s Mānuka tree – not products derived from other origins.”
The Australian version of the Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium, is also known as Jelly Bush or Tea Tree.
The research paper, titled Single nucleotide polymorphism analysis in Leptospermum scoparium (Myrtaceae) supports two highly differentiated endemic species in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, was published in Springer Nature here.
It identified nine family clusters in New Zealand, corresponding with different geographic regions, and two clusters in Tasmania. The New Zealand clusters were more closely related than those found in Australia, with evidence of recent cross breeding. The genetic differences between the clusters suggest that New Zealand and Australian Mānuka diverged nine to 12 million years ago.
The study – which builds on an earlier analysis of New Zealand and Australian Mānuka led by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and published in 2022 - analysed 86 samples of mānuka from seven locations across Tasmania and 458 samples from 22 locations across New Zealand. Using 2,069 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) across the mānuka genome, the team developed DNA profiles for each of the samples. Analysis of these profiles identified 11 unique clusters of genetically similar mānuka trees, nine related clusters from New Zealand and two from Tasmania.
Not much protection for taonga
The research was funded by Te Pitau Ltd, the operating arm of the Mānuka Charitable Trust, Plant & Food Research and the Department of Conservation. Mānuka samples were collected in New Zealand with permission from Māori landowners.
Providing legal protection for taonga and mātauranga Māori – including through the intellectual property system – has been discussed for many years, with the 1991 Wai 262 claim asking the Waitangi Tribunal to redress Crown laws and policies that denied Māori control over taonga, in violation of Te Tiriti.
In 2011, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a report containing recommendations about how intellectual property laws should be reformed to ensure taonga and mātauranga were protected.
Manuka honey is now only part of an industry looking at other parts of the tree to make health-related products. Scientific research has shown Mānuka oil is 1,000 times more powerful than Mānuka honey.
Earlier this month it was revealed that Mānuka plantations of more than five million trees are growing across 130ha across the East Cape, with Manuka Bioscience paying Te Whānau a Apanui landowners an annual rent for forestry rights. The landowners are also shareholders in the company.
The partnership has helped the company become the largest producer of Mānuka oil in the world.
Their advantage lies in the level of triketones — an organic chemical compound — which is higher in East Cape Mānuka than in any other area of New Zealand.
The Aussies are also cashing in on mānuka oil. They have more than 80 species of Leptospermum growing there.
A six-week clinical trial Mānuka Bioscience ran showed a clear improvement in reducing the severity of eczema in adults and children, and more work is being carried out on dosage levels. A trial is also planned for the treatment of ‘school sores’ or impetigo, using mānuka oil as the active ingredient.
