This report provides a review of literature on the Māori marine economy. The report begins by defining ‘blue economy’ and what is meant by an Indigenous blue economy. Next, it outlines the Māori worldview in order to delineate the full parameters of an Indigenous blue economy. It then introduces the traditional Māori marine economy before contact and colonisation, describing property right structures both generally and with specific reference to marine resources, elucidating the impact colonisation had on these structures, and examining traditional systems of exchange that characterised the MME and its sustainable resource management methods. The report provides an outline of the MME post-Te Tiriti, from the whānau- and kāinga-centred fishing villages of the early 1800s through to the MME of the 1950s–1970s. It describes how the removal of the original Māori property right structures and appropriate governance regimes led to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation and subsequent overexploitation of the fisheries.