Kaitiakitanga

Kaitiakitanga Program and Network
Te Whaiti Nui-a-Toi children
guard and share Whirinaki,
their culture, language and values

Thanks to the Lottery Fund for koha us get to a seminar in the US in June to help establish our Myco-restoration project. We invite others to help us share this and to establish our new restoration education centre.

Hokianga Harbourcare

ARTICLE IN NORTHLAND TIMES 25th Feb 2004.

Will Stensness of Whirinaki (in Hokianga) is angry because the Hokianga Harbour and its tributaries, which have fed his tupuna (ancestors) for 29 generations, are in a bad way. Fish numbers are so low it takes Will up to three hours to catch a flounder and he has had difficulties getting a kayaking business off the ground because of rubbish in the Whirinaki River.

Earlier this month, Northland Health warned against eating shellfish from the harbour, because of the high levels of microcystin toxins they contained. Last July, Northland's medical officer of health Dr Jonathan Jarman warned about the "extreme risk" posed by some houses at Horeke that were discharging sewage into the harbour.

But Will, his son Randal and others, are forming a harbour care group to tackle some of these problems. "That's our cupboard out there. It has to be looked after," Will said. He said that livestock and sediment runoff was partly responsible for the harbour's deteriorating water quality and reducing this would be the Hokianga Harbour Care Collective's main aim. The collective plans to re-vegetate stream and harbour edges with native plants to create a more favourable habitat for fish and provide a buffer between land and water. It will also encourage farmers, with livestock, to fence waterways and will, itself, begin fencing off and planting out riparian strips on a farm near Whirinaki shortly.

Will said the community had got right behind the idea, with 150 people attending a public meeting in January and 32 marae in the Hokianga area responding positively to his requests for support. Will and the collective will not be venturing into entirely unfamiliar territory. In the mid-nineties, Fred Lichtwark founded a harbour care group to address similar problems in Raglan's Whaingaroa Harbour. Since then, the group has planted half a million trees and persuaded 80 percent of local farmers to fence off 350-400 km of stream and harbour edge. Last week, Mr Lichtwark said the Whaingaroa harbour was no longer under threat from runoff. He said that fish had begun returning to the harbour, as water quality had improved, and there were now eight commercial fishing operators working the harbour instead of four operators eight years ago.
Mr Lichtwark said dairy farmers had reported improved stock health, and a 20 percent increase in milk production, as fewer cows were able to drink from polluted waterways.

No website is yet available for this project, so we the people of the other Whirinaki in Te Urewera, include this as our koha to their task. We are honoured to include them as active members of the Kaitiakiatanga Network www.kaitiakitanga.net that shares information and resources between a number of mainly rural communities in NZ and internationally.

In 2005 - A year later - the Hokianga Harbour Collective (HHCC) was established and well under way. Their aim is to encourage the establishment of ten other nurseries around the Hokianga operated by Marae, Community Groups and Schools, each assuming the role and responsibilities as kaitiaki (guardians) of their local patches.

This is a bold ten year program involving many young people who currently cannot secure work in their locality. It has the capacity to help grow strong and sustainable communities by giving participants the confidence to grow further into other new enterprise initiatives. (See 2007 WWF report "Not just trees in the Ground - The Social and Economic Benefits of Conservation Projects"

VIDEO For more information on HHCC work view their work (at the end of the Hunter Lovins SMART ENVIRONMENT Clip) and a radio interview on Greenplanet FM they did in July 07

With previous help from WWF funding, they initially operated from a nursery established in the grounds of the Rawene Hospital, growing a new place of natural health for both patients and the community to work in and enjoy.

With the recent increases in fuel costs and security concerns, they have been forced to bring the pilot nursery closer to home at Whirinaki Hokianga. They are so dedicated that they operated it largely at their own personal cost. From here they are encouraging schools, marae and other groups to start their own local restoration initiatives.

Up until the Nov 2007, they have planted some 65,000 trees in the Hokianga Area.

THE HOKIANGA HARBOURCARE VISION

To be able to sit on a rock with our grandhildren fishing and swimming in clean and safe water where fish are plentiful.
To help make this happen our target is to plant 1,000,000 trees around the harbour each year.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS BUILDING - SHARING MAORI VALUES

In addition to their on the ground nursery operation, they draw attention to all issues that may pollute the harbour and courageously expose ineffective application of the Resource management Act (RMA) and other local or government procedures that have been put in place to preserve it for future generations.

They are working with farmers and landowners to fence and plant the waterways that have been responsible for passing farming nutrients and other toxins to pollute their harbour.

They held up a roading project crossing an estuary area near Rawene, and helped the contractor establish new procedures to ensure that tar-sealing and other toxins do not leach into the harbour and destroy the fragile wildlife of the estuary.

(After planting out these and other road verges they were distraught to find careless council contractors had mown and sprayed many of the young plants. They ask how the council and government environment environmental policies still still allow the use of using toxic spray on the road verges adjacent to the harbour, streams and wetlands)

They are pressuring councils and government to ensure that effluents discharged from sewerage facilities and other developments do not continue to poison our land and harbours; putting the health of future generations at serious risk.

They have become frustrated after many years of official complaints at all levels of government about polluting discharges from the Rawene Sewerage ponds (pictured). In desperation, in mid 2006 they blocked the outfall into the Harbour to draw attention to this issue.

This resulted in a legal case against Will Stensness. This was countered on environmental grounds, and draws attention to sewerage treatment processes and the validity of discharge consents being issued under the RMA (Resource Management Act).

On a learning trip by Will and others to the Sustainable Resources Conference in Colorado in 2004 (see report) they became aware of the work of Dr John Todd who has developed "Eco Machine" sewerage treatment plants and Paul Stamets Environmental Mycoremediation using fungi which have the potential to help overcome some of the discharge issues facing their harbour.

There is no longer any need for toxic and dangerous discharges like these illustrated to be released into our wetlands and harbour.

VIDEO Compare this with Chapter 7 of the 2007 Environmental report from MfE

INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS AND ONGOING LEARNING IN THE KAITIAKITANGA NETWORK:

As part of the Kaitiakitanga Network they are connecting with partners including environmental, community development and indigenous groups around the world for mutual support and to share best practices, many of which do not seem to be yet well understood by conventional science.

See what their Chairman Randal Stensness discovered on his learning journey with other young New Zealanders to the US and Canada in June 2007. This was arranged and made possible by Kaitiakitanga Network sponsorship. www.kaitiakitanga.net

We initiated a new program on environmental Mycorestoration (using Fungi and Mushrooms) involving all partners in the Kaitiakitanga Network. We got Randal up to a seminar on this in the US on 7-8 June 2008 then to bring information home, conduct local research and share our learning nationally

VIDEO - see HHCC at the end of the Hunter Lovins SMART ENVIRONMENT Clip click here

VIDEO - an illustrated interview with Tim Lynch - GREENPLANET FM 104.6 Click here

If you would like a copy of a DVD "Growing Aotearoa Sustainably - Tipu Ake and Kaitiakitanga in Action" which features a full Hokianga Harbourcare interview and much more, please call us and we will send you one. In return you are free to send a Koha help with our work.

Their aim is to create local opportunities for youth and community growth - Randal is an active member of the Kiwi Youth Voice Network www.thelongsong.com and HHCC invites other youth to assist them with voluntary work, university research projects etc. This and other networks open up a Win-Win learning opportunity for both the students and those young people and others involved at Hokianga Harbourcare.

They invite international and other visitors to join with them and share expertise. many overseas visitors enjoy working as volunteers with them in the nursery.

They are a very positive, action focused grassroots organisation has established itself on a shoestring budget below the radar of government sustainability initiatives and funding. If there is anything you can offer to help or share with them, or you want more information, contact:

CONTACT US:

Hokianga Harbourcare Collective,
c/o Will or Randal Stensness
791A State Highway 12
Whirinaki, Hokianga, Northland
Phone (09) 405 8415
email: hokiangaharbourcare@hotmail.com

OUR SEARCH FOR EFFECTIVE FUNDING FOR A CRITICAL PROGRAM FOR OUR NATION'S FUTURE

On 8th Nov 2005 - The Hokianga Harbour Care Collective applied for funding from the NZ Sustainable Management Fund to expand their operations to include 10 native nurseries around the harbour to fast track the harbour cleanup programme, which they believed was a positive local initiative that met all the criteria of the fund. In Dec 2005 they were advised that their application was unsuccessful, indicating to them that the government system was not serious about the critical environmental issues in their catchment, leaving them as kaitiaki with no option but to re-assume responsibility for its future themselves.

On 20th Feb 2007 - Hokianga Harbourcare resubmitted a revised application Click here to read it . On 27 April 2007 MfE wrote to them telling them that of the $28.2M in applications they only had a fund of 3.84M .. So sorry your application was declined! They do not accept this decline (see email in response) and will be using all their influence and many partners to help MfE urgently seek a much higher level of committed funding to allow this and many other community projects to go ahead, particularly given the government's recent commitment to sustainability and its 100% pure tourism publicity badge.

Dec 07 - After questioning MfE and finding that their budget for the 2008 round was still 3.84M, Hokianga Harbourcare decided not to spend more energy re-applying for the third time for the SMF funding round that closes on 24 Jan 2008. It was not considered not honorable to pursue a Government agenda, values and mindset that does not match that of broader HHCC Kaupapa.

March 07 - Hokianga Harbourcare initiated funding applications with The Todd Foundation, WWF, Tindall Foundation and ASB Community Trust seeking Koha (donations) supporting innovative community based protocols that allow the program to roll out another nine largely autonomous local nurseries from Mid 2008 to exploit the 2008/9 germination season. This is now being done with local resources.

Nov 07 Formal requests made to MSD (Ministry of Social Development, Northland) asking them to propose innovative ways to fund the wages of otherwise unemployed young and other people working on this nationally critical long term environmental restoration program. Some of the young people volunteering to work at Hokianga Harbourcare full time have had their benefits cut.

WHERE WE ARE NOW:

STOP PRESS

To get the Whirinaki nursery buzzing over the 2007 / 2008 summer germination season, we tripled our shadehouse size to help increase our target rate to around 100,000 trees per annum. We look forward to MSD leveraging this by supporting the young people now working with us on our innovative and very practical training programmes.

URGENT NEED: The HHCC wider team is now working to secure is own funding stream and appropriate operating / training protocol allow the Whirinaki Nursery pilot operation to be replicated by further marae or other community groups spread around the harbour to get the overall planting rate up to around one million trees per annum for the 2008 / 9 summer propagation season. Each nursery will operate semi autonomously with the material required (mainly seed raise mix) centrally arranged under funding and bulk contracts with suppliers. This Whirinaki pilot nursery is be a place where key personnel from the other locations can grow the experience and skills they need beforehand.

PROPOSED STRUCTURE:

The HHCC kaupapa encourages a wide range local hapu and marae, schools and other groups to to participate. All community and other parties interact in a Ohu (alliance) style network structure cemented by whanau links and win-win leverage relationships driven by the common goal of a sustainable and well future for all. This Ohu in itself not a legal entity, so the HHCC operations support group that forms part of it, is the way in which funding and accountability is managed.

The objective is for the need for government and NGO funding to be phased out as communities grow their own economic bases and means of support.

APPLYING A LIVING SYSTEMS THINKING APPROACH TO DELIVER MULTIPARTY OUTCOMES:

By "Systems Thinking" we mean seeing relationships between the things that make up a whole which is much more than the sum of the individual parts. This allows us to recognise interdependencies and lever opportunities for collaboration. When we add "Living" in front of this we get into nature's organic mindset; this encourages us to always be always looking for opportunities for leadership, learning and growth at all levels. "Living Systems" focus on where they want to be in the future, more so than looking for short term solutions to address the individual problems of the day.

The Hokianga Harbourcare kaupapa is one that welcomes stakeholders and groups who can who can get win-win benefits by participating in this program, including:

• The Environment itself - better able to support human life, wellness and diversity for the future
• Community
  • Young people - for whom there are currently few ongoing employment opportunities and most are denied employment support / benefits if they remain in their homes.
  • Marae and Community - An opportunity for cross generational projects and knowledge sharing. Opportunity to keep young people in the local community for development, succession and growth
  • Schools - education outside the classroom opportunities, role models for (and by) young people
  • Regional pride and capability - be seen to be pioneering new models for development
• Private Funders
  • Opportunities to invest in NZ's future with innovative, collaborative programs
  • International exposure and the growth / pioneering best practice community driven models
• Government
  • MSD - development opportunity for people, particularly for locally unemployed youth
  • WINZ - growing sustainable jobs - perhaps a little longer term focused than the current task force green
  • DIA - community development and new protocols to support them
  • TPK - opportunity to realise Maori potential, values and creativity
  • DOC - new local partners dedicated to protecting diversity
  • MfE - local action on govt priorities around climate change and sustainability
  • MEDU - opportunities for enhancing student / project based learning
  • MOH - opportunity to improve local health outcomes and thus reduce costs
  • MED - economic growth
  • TNZ - Tourism development in Hokianga area - giving credibility to "100% green"
  • Police, courts and corrections- positive opportunities for people

THE FUNDING AND OPERATIONAL STRATEGY THAT HOKIANGA HARBOURCARE AND ITS PARTNERS PROPOSED in 2007:

1. Obtaining direct funding to cover the high direct cost of purchasing materials and services to establish and operate the ten proposed nurseries and a centralised support group. Their low income communities involved need this to proceed, particularly over the start up period.

All nurseries will be largely autonomous and as kaitiaki will take responsibility for their local areas. They will be supported by a central HHCC support group based in Whirinaki Hokianga who will coordinate nursery establishment, participant training, supply of materials, community education and volunteer promotion, network liaison, research activities, quality and outcome monitoring, program reporting and interfaces with funders and government. (This funding is transparently managed as it is supported by direct supplier invoices)

(Compare this proactive investment in the future of Hokianga with the $20 m plus spent on the Kerikeri stone store bi-pass or the 100's of Millions of dollars the country is being forced to pour into emergency actions to clean up the Rotorua Lakes)

2. Initiate Dialogue with Government agencies MSD, WINZ, etc to recognise the much wider environmental, social economic, education, health and other spin of outcomes of this program and fund the community wage component of this. The current unemployment support, Task Force Green, economic development training and other policies to not easily cater for such a comprehensive and long term program which requires high cross agency collaboration. The program evaluates the full time equivalent employment costs of a supervisor and five young workers in each nursery against a target planting rate of 100,000 trees per annum at each nursery.

(This positive employment and learning environment is seen as an incubator that local young people in particular will roll through, en-route growing confidence for other sustainable economic development activities outside the nursery itself - see 3 and 4 below. . This is a radically different approach to employment development from one that forced them to undertake training courses that left them demoralised - with a massive student debt and no real qualifications for the future.)

This program forces us as a nation to rethink about work in low employment rural areas. The People here are proactively doing one of the most important jobs in the country - restoring the environment and growing bold new opportunities for future generations.

Its a real job and they need to be paid appropriately. Under the "polluter pays principle", government and the economic system that has caused this degradation must take its responsibility for its past actions by funding this - It is not unethical to expect largely underemployed full time volunteers to subsidise this with their own time.

3. Encouraging each nursery to grow a high percentage of sustainable income to at least cover the direct material costs (1 above) by around year three. This may include (eg plant sales, tourist volunteers, visitor Whakapapa tree planting, koha, carbon credits, farm fencing contracts, roadside restoration planting, black water processing by "living machines"), cropping plantings (eg flax, fibre, medicines, food, biofuel) and water sales once it it s clean,

(We expect that as global climate change and the environment moves to become an international and national priority, revenue generating opportunities will emerge and look to Local and Central Government to establish the required environment to encourage this).

4. Incubating spin-off sustainable businesses and employment that will be mutually inter-dependent on the quality of the Hokianga Harbour water and the environmental purity of its catchment and communities. This may include: Tourisim activities (eg fishing, guiding kayaking and cultural ventures), Environmental Projects - (eg pest control), Energy projects (eg biofuels, sustainable housing), education projects (eg environmental centres, kaitiakitanga values, environmental monitoring, mycorestoration research and monitoring), Health (social and community initiatives), Enterprise projects - (eg bottled water sales)

Examples: Already operating in parallel with the existing Hokianga Nursery

1. In Nov 2007 WAI - a bottled water enterprise was started by the Stensness whanau which contributes a percentage of the bottle sale to environmental projects - eg Hokianga Harbourcare activities. This also provides for a bottle return deposit to encourage recycling. (As clean water asset becomes an international scarcity, it is essential that we look after the quality of our pure water at source. In addition to our HHCC Nursery and riparian planting activities, this requires that we no longer indiscriminately broadcast 1080 in our headwater bush for pest control purposes)

2. In 2003 the Stensness Whanau started offering kayaking tours on the Whirinaki River and Hokianga Harbour. They initiated a cleanup of the river banks, the condition of which caused them to start HHCC, but more needs to be done. (These and similar ventures also attract tourists to the HHCC kaupapa and many enjoy the opportunity to volunteer their services in the nursery, for public planting days, but more importantly to share their knowledge and create networks that open opportunities both local and international for our young people, giving them the ability to become knowledgeable tour guides

3. Gardening, succulent propagation for sale , poultry and other land based activities that are used to allow the whanau to become less dependent on external resources are practiced. Some will grow into sustainable revenue generating enterprises. Sandra Moore is a trained environmental scientist..

 

4. Other activities supporting enterprise and positive lifeskill and leadership development include building facilities, fencing, equipment maintenance and more, all of which add to the learning of young people involved in the HHCC nursery.

 

5 In April 2008 we started construction of our new environmental restoration education center in Whirinaki, Hokianga which houses our learning space, accommodation for visitors, our mycorestoration/ mushroom propagation lab and water bottling plant .

6. We are assisting the court system by taking in young people required to do community service (for such things as collecting seafood). The positive attitude around here is encouraging many of them to stay on and become the engine room of our our nursery operations.

 

The elements of Kaitiakitanga (Sustainability and more) we promote at Hokianga Harbourcare
1. Environmental	Our restoration initiative - We use the "polluter pays" principle so wont subsidise it
2. Social and Community	Preserving our Maori and rural culture - growing youth for community strength
3. Local Economic System	Growing revenue streams and trading that gives independent long term wellbeing
4. Wider Development	Addressing issues and supporting responsible farming, business and government

You are invited join in on this a positive initiative. If you can provide help with knowledge, materials, or source funds to assist them with this positive program, please make contact above.

If anyone has spare agricultural sheds, portable industrial site offices or similar that you would like to donate to help us set up our Mycorestoration laboratories and propagation facilities, please let us know.

Progress, Achievement and Issues Log

NOTICES AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Our gift to you - download our Free Whirinaki Wall Calendar

What Andree a sustainability writer discovered about Kaitiakitanga
Check out our school's Energy Monitoring / Weatherstation project
WEMZ - The Whirinaki Ecological Restoration Zone - a project with DOC
Building our new visitor information kiosk on the main road
Take a photo tour through our valley see restoration work needed
Pending - our Whirinaki Centre, Nursary and Recycling Projects
Celebrate what our friends at Hokianga Harbourcare are doing
Our Network's Mycorestoration Research Project - Fungi and mushroom
Thanks MfE for a big toxin cleanup on our millsites - July 07
Thanks TPK for facilitating Govt support for Minginui initiatives
Our Community Digital Strategy pending - Whirinaki Interactive - Dec 06
Our Lopez friends help Raglan initiate an affordable housing program
Prince Andrew adopts our Kiwi, Princess Beatrice on Mokoia Is Mar 07
Our Project to upgrade our water supply in Minginui Mar 07
Our network on the Kiwi Youth Voice learning journey to US. Mar 07
Our network at Youth Voice Digital Earth Summit on Sustainbility Aug 06
We welcomed Hunter Lovins 7-9 July 06, VIDEO view NZ tour resources
Thanks Waikato University for help with broadband 05
Thanks Housing Corp, house painting and marae restoration teams
Go Tramping in Whirinaki. See Kaka, Kiwi, Weka, Robin, Blueduck
Report Living Organisation workshops. Tipu Ake presented worldwide 05
Report Hikoi to Indigenous Knowledges Conf , Well, NZ. June 05
Thanks to UNITEC Architecture Students for help with town plans 04
Report on Sustainable Resources Conf, Colorado 04
Report on PMI Global Forum, Los Angeles Tipu Ake paper 04
Report on Sharing Indigenous Wisdom Conf, Wisconsin, June 04
Int and local visitors attend Tipu Ake Retreat March 04 See report
MPs Horomia and Mallard open our new merged area school Jan 04
Trip to Whaingaroa Env Gp Raglan, Jan04 learnings, VIDEO view