Iti te Kōpara – Hapū Economic Development Plan

Iti te kopara kai takiri ana i runga i te Kahikatea.

Hikurangi Takiwa Trust (HTT) with support from Eastland Community Trust (ECT), commissioned the preparation of a draft Economic Development Plan to help identify opportunities and plan action to raise the economic wellbeing of the Takiwa.

Scope

HTT Trustees agreed at their meeting in March 2016 that it made sense for the plan to include people and places in the wider district and not be restricted just to the geographic and population communities that Hikurangi Takiwa Trust is established to benefit. This plan has a focus on the area generally from Te Puia Springs and Waipiro Bay through to Poroporo and Rangitukia.

It is by no means comprehensive or authoritative, it has no explicit mandate from the people in this district but we have tried to involve business owners and local residents in identifying priorities and opportunities to progress. We have provided drafts of the plan to a number of external stakeholders with a particular interest in our communities.

Structure

Through a process of local stakeholder engagement and research, a broad range of opportunities have been narrowed down in the development of an Action Plan to ensure limited resources can make the greatest short to medium term difference.

The projects in the Action Plan have been organised together into three broad work streams:

• WHAIRAWA / CAPITAL GROWTH
• AHUWHENUA / ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT
• KUHUKUHU / SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS

 

The Whairawa / Capital Growth work-stream focuses on identifying and growing six asset classes in the district:

• Natural Capital: Regenerating a healthy natural environment.
• Manufactured Capital: Ensuring the infrastructure that enables economic development and wellbeing is available.
• Human Capital: Building local capability for economic development through education, training, mentoring and whānau relocating back to the district.
• Intellectual Capital: Developing and protecting knowledge-based assets including traditional knowledge and intellectual property.
• Financial Capital: Encouraging capital investment in local ventures.
• Social & Cultural Capital: Maintaining and growing healthy relationships, traditions, creativity and resources within the community.

The Ahuwhenua / Enterprise Development work-stream focuses on supporting the local development of high value industries and the business service sector. This includes new products and services and expanding existing enterprises while reducing associated business costs:

• Tourism & Hospitality: eco-tourism, cultural experiences, agricultural tourism, etc.
• Bioactives: manuka, kanuka, hemp, pine, etc.
• Energy: solar, hydro and biomass for heating, fuel and electricity
• Research & Technology: online businesses and services, consultants and technical support, etc.
• Forestry: diversifying species, improving environmental management, utilising waste stream, etc.
• Beef & Sheep: diversifying breeds and improving production
• Horticulture: cropping, nuts, truffles, saffron, Nati Kai Kete, etc.

The Kuhukuhu / Sustainable Livelihoods work-stream focuses on supporting whānau to stay in the district, maintain sustainable lifestyles based on traditional whenua and access to natural resources through:

• Supporting Existing Businesses: identifying & deploying priority business support for existing enterprise;
• Reframing Development: using progress indicators that measure wellbeing instead of income;
• Supporting Subsistence: enabling public policy supporting rather than penalising subsistence lifestyles based on hunting, gathering and harvesting;
• Digital Development: improving digital infrastructure and skills for telecommuting.

Next Steps

To progress the goals of the plan Hikurangi Takiwa Trust supports the establishment of a new entity to lead job creation and economic development opportunities in the takiwa and neighbouring hapū. Subsequently this planning process has resulted in the establishment of Hikurangi Huataukina Trust, a charitable trust focused on job creation and economic development – initially in the communities between Waipiro Bay and Rangitukia.

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DOWNLOADS:

• Iti Te Kōpara (screen version)
• Iti Te Kōpara (print version)
• Iti Te Kōpara diagram

Freshwater Monitoring Workshop

Hikurangi Takiwa Trust has teamed up with He Awa Ora, He Tai Ora, Healthy Rivers Living Sea Education Trust to offer a two day training workshop on stream and river quality monitoring. 

The free workshop will cover a wide range of low cost, user-friendly tools and scientifically robust techniques for assessing the quality and changes in waterways in Tairāwhiti. The workshop will be based in the Waikohu and Makatote streams that feed into the awa Mata. Cultural considerations and Health & Safety issues will also be covered in the workshop.

Accommodation is available and we encourage participation from hapu members, marae representatives, local landowners, teachers and students.

The workshop will start 10am Monday 27 June at Kariaka Pa, Ruatoria and conclude 3pm 28 June.

For more information and to register please contact Pia Pohatu: pia@uritukuiho.org.nz 

Hapū aiming for habitat protection through sustainable land use

With a national report just released showing 74 per cent of native freshwater species are threatened and the relaxing of plantation forestry rules set to cause more erosion, a hapu collective on the East Coast plans to enhance natural habitat while ensuring families based on the land can make a living.

Hapu ‘kaitieki’ on top of Tutae-a-Whata near Makarika.

The third Hikurangi Takiwa Trust hapu wananga of the Tieki Te Taiao o Te Takiwa project was held at Penu Pa near Makarika over the weekend.

Wananga activities included measuring water quality and stream habitat, assessing the impact of soil erosion on land use and waterways, restoring native vegetation and the looking at the environmental impacts of various land uses including farming, forestry and residential settlement.

Sharing stream survey tools and techniques in-situ of the Makatote Stream with students from Te Kura o Makarika, Te Kura o Hiruharama, Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Waiu and Te Parekereke Mokopuna o Hiruharama was the highlight on the first day facilitated by Murray Palmer, Amy-Rose Hardy and Dr Joanne Clapcott, a freshwater scientist with the Cawthron Institute in Nelson.

The Rapid Habitat Assessment (RHA) is a tool developed by Dr Clapcott for stream habitat assessment. It provides a straightforward way for assessors to score and areas that don’t score so well provide a clear focus for restoration efforts.

Dr Joanne Clapcott from the Cawthron Institute identifying stream inhabitants with wananga participants from Makarika and Hiruharama.

Wananga participants focused on a monitoring site in the Makatote Stream just below Penu Pa. With an RHA score of 72/100, areas for habitat improvement were readily identified as riparian shade, and adjacent and upstream erosion.

The macroinvertebrate community (stream bugs) index score for the same site was 116.4, just below the threshold for ‘Excellent – clean water’.

“This is especially good for a farm-type stream as we took samples from a range of habitats” said Mr Palmer, who has been monitoring waterways around the district for more than thirty years. “Nearly half of the animals gathered were of the sensitive orders, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera, again a very good result.”

Matauranga a hapu was a highlight of the weekend with whakapapa expert Karen Pewhairangi facilitating a role-play with participants of local historical events involving tipuna Te Atau. Nga Kuri Paaka a Uetuhiao, Te Rangitawaea and Kirimamae and their children Rongoitekai, Rongohaere and Wi o Te Rangi.

“We orient ourselves through our shared whakapapa and stories” said project coordinator and local land owner Pia Pohatu. “Our cultural landscape helps us make sense of what is happening in today’s physical landscape and ways we can lead and support current-day landowners and decision-makers with restoration aspirations.”

Regenerating kahikatea, totara and rewarewa at Pouturu Station, Ihungia.

Advancing an integrated environmental monitoring program for te rohenga o Hikurangi Takiwa was a major milestone for the Trust, that works for the six pa and associated hapu in the area between Mt Hikurangi, Waipiro Bay and Ruatoria.

“We are grateful for the expertise and participation of scientists like Murray, Joanne and Dr Ian Ruru” said Ms Pohatu.

Weta at Waingakia Station.

The monitoring program will integrate three key water quality measuring tools – the Mauri Compass developed by Dr Ruru and endorsed by Gisborne District Council, the Rapid Habitat Assessment developed by Dr Clapcott and the Cawthron Institute, and the Macroinvertebrate Community Index endorsed by the Ministry for the Environment. A digital monitoring tool with an interactive ‘touch-smart’ and GIS mapping platform is being developed as a user interface for the monitoring data collected.

Wananga participants included a number of local land owners, farmers and young people.

“We are really looking to achieve a sustainable model of co-existence between humans and other species” said participant Manu Caddie. “As Wendell Berry says, the question we must deal with is not whether the domestic and the wild are separate or can be separated; it is how, in the human economy, their indissoluble and necessary connection can be properly maintained. What kind of plantation forestry or hill country farming is helpful to protect remaining wildlife while still enabling locals to earn a living? And where will our food and construction materials come from if we didn’t have farming or forestry?”

Amy-Rose Hardy instructing wananga participants on the process for gathering macroinvertebrate from the Makatote Stream.

Participants spent the evenings adding sites to a growing digital database and GIS map for Hikurangi Takiwa using online services to source information that was integrated with local cultural knowledge.

“GIS is a powerful and accessible tool for recording and re-presenting matauranga (cultural knowledge) that is important to us, supports lifelong learning and our aspirations, needs and responsibilities as kaitiaki” said Ms Pohatu.

“The ability to collaboratively build and share maps supports intergenerational transmission of matauranga, improves our decision-making and better informs the initiatives we want to lead and get involved with.”

A Ngati Porou Wai Maori Hui was held at the conclusion of the wananga with presentations by Te Runanganui o Ngati Porou representatives and Gisborne District Council staff.

Penu Pa is one of 30 marae that has access to Nati Waiwhai, a free internet service established by Te Runanganui o Ngati Porou and local ISP Gisborne.Net.

“Internet access is essential for this kind of event” said Penu Pa committee member Natasha Koia. “So we are grateful to the individuals and organisations that have made WiFi accessible to most marae on the East Coast.”

The wananga was supported by the Department of Conservation Community Conservation Partnership Fund, Gisborne District Council and the Cawthron Institute.

Collecting macroinvertebrate from the Makatote Stream.

 

Wananga participants agreed on the need to develop a waterway monitoring program to assess the quality of streams and rivers before, during and after plantation forest harvesting within the hapu estate.

Forestry consultation predetermined – Hapu

Slash catchers in an East Coast stream could be removed under the proposed NES. Source: Gisborne District Council

Hapu representatives say MPI officials should follow the more conciliatory example of their Minister rather than taking offence at criticism of the poor process used to develop new rules for forestry.

Ministry for Primary Industries spatial, forestry and land management acting director Craig Trotter yesterday claimed MPI had taken a ‘collaborative approach’ to the the development of the proposed National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry ‘working closely with representatives from environmental non-government organisations.’

“That is complete rubbish” said Te Papatipu o Uepohatu Trust chair Tui Warmenhoven. We are the most affected region in the country and the only time we’ve seen MPI on this kaupapa was in March when they spent a couple of hours at a meeting in Ruatoria and recently in Gisborne when they presented the proposed NES.”

“It was clear at the presentation in Gisborne that MPI had not made any substantive changes based on the feedback they got in Ruatoria from East Coast hapu and iwi representatives.”

Mr Trotter also said MPI had given Gisborne District Council ‘ample time’ to have input into the NES wording.

“While GDC had a staff member on the working group, they were outnumbered by forest industry representatives for whom the NES is a license to wreak more havoc and care even less for our land and waterways” said Ms Warmenhoven, who is also a researcher studying the impacts of industry on the Waiapu river.

Ms Warmenhoven said it was clear when the NES was taken from the Ministry for the Environment and given to MPI that the focus was on reducing regulation and environmental protections.

“Just because someone was a member of the Working Group doesn’t mean they were listened to, and it was the same with the hui in Ruatoria – they used us to claim some degree of consultation and then continued with their industry-led plan to cut costs which our communities and catchments will suffer from.”

A number of regional councils have opposed the NES, especially in places like Malborough where scientific reports have shown a link between post-harvest run-off and a decline in the coastal marine environment.

At least two hapu groups within Ngati Porou are threatening to take a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal if a NES is adopted that does not address the environmental concerns outlined in the hapu and council submissions.

“We think it would have been wise for MPI officials to follow the example of Ministers Goodhew and Finlayson and not make any judgement or publicly criticise submitters while submissions are being considered” said Ms Warmenhoven. “It seems some within MPI may have already determined the outcome of the consultation process before they have considered the more than 16,000 submission received this week. That suggests this whole exercise, including the Working Group, may all have been an expensive sham.”

Ms Warmenhoven said, as part of Ngati Porou’s treaty settlement, the Crown committed to addressing the state of the land, waterways, and people of the Waiapu catchment, where much of the land is under Māori title.

“So the commitment has become a commitment for 100 years of restoration of the Waiapu catchment. How can we genuinely walk that 100-year road when we are creating a National Environmental Standard which basically throws all that acknowledgement, all that headway that we’ve made out the door?”

In a written statement, Associate Primary Industries Minister Jo Goodhew has said much of the land the trusts were concerned about was zoned as high risk or very high risk, under the new standard’s erosion susceptibility classification.

“For areas of very high risk, resource consent is automatically required and the council will be able to place site-specific conditions on the management of the activity. For high risk areas, stringent conditions will be imposed on foresters working without a resource consent.”

Hapu and GDC submissions both make the point that most of the land in the district is in the high risk category and will therefore be a permitted activity as a lot of problems occur on land at less than the 25 degrees threshold.

“We make the important point that it is much easier if the Consenting Authority is able to assess the specifics of each application based on the particular situation and impose conditions at that point rather than only having  recourse to the expensive option of litigation if an activity isn’t complying with whatever generic rules MPI comes up with.”

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The hapu have made their full submissions available at: www.hikurangitakiwa.nz

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Contacts:

Tui Warmenhoven, Chair, Te Papatipu o Uepohatu Trust – Tel. 021 413508 – Email: tuiaroha@gmail.com

Pia Pohatu, Trustee, Hikurangi Takiwa Trust – Email: pia@uritukuiho.org.nz

Tieki Te Taiao Wānanga #4 Programme

Due a number of factors beyond our control (like lambing and bereavements) some last minute changes to the wānanga programme – and this is still subject to weather and a range of other factors – but it’s still looking awesome!

Organisers reserve the right to change the programme whenever we feel like it…