6 | BUSINESS Sustainable Business Network Awards - Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Extensive garden showcase for tribe Virginia Wright The landscaping team poses for a photo on Quay Street. Drive along Kepa Rd in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and you’ll see what hard work with a vision can achieve on a piece of land that only three years ago was grazing ponies. The recent addition of this 33-hectare block, Pourewa, combines it with two others: Okahu Bay and the Whenua Rangatira block, which backs onto the Mārae and the Michael Joseph Savage Reserve, which makes a total of 90 hectares of land under the management of local iwi Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Pou Whenua is responsible for managing the 90 hectares with two operational staff, Wyatt Dooley, and Dane Tumahai, who is himself of Ngāti Whātua heritage. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei was a finalist in the 2021 Sustainable Business Awards which is not surprising once you grasp the depth and breadth of what they’re doing. Eco-maintenance is one of the words used to describe the kaupapa that underpins everything they do on the whenua; and in the first instance, at Pourewa, this means nurturing the extensive market garden (māra kai) they’ve established on the former pony club land, along with a native plant nursery and, in the pipeline, a māra rongoā (native medicinal garden). They’ve invested in an automatic composting system through Global Composting Solutions to turn their waste into compost which they then use to nourish the garden. “We’re kaitiaki for the whenua,” says Dane. “We’re building sustainability projects through our mātāpono (values). We don’t use chemicals or sprays, and we only take in seeds of Tāmaki provenance. “From a Māori world perspective it’s not just about the tangible stuff on the land, we’re growing our people. We employ over 30 of our people from our local tribe so we’re nurturing the whenua, we’re nurturing trees, we’re nurturing food and we’re nurturing leaders.” Across Aotearoa New Zealand there are different ecological districts otherwise known as seed provenances. “Those areas were divided by ecologists where seeds might disperse naturally in the wild, via wind or birds for example,” explains Wyatt. “So our area is known as the Tāmaki ecological district which amounts to approximately the boundaries of central Auckland.” Pohutukawa from Gisborne for example will have different genetics to those from Auckland even though they’re from the same species, so if Pourewa is looking for plants for their restoration project they source them accordingly. 027 531 3377 info@gelectrical.co.nz www.gelectrical.co.nz FOR ALL YOUR ELECTRICAL NEEDS • 0800 GE POWER Guaranteed Electrical are proud to support Ngati Whatua Orakei The food in the māra kai is grown according to the maramataka explains Dane. “Those types of historical practices that our tupuna used to do, and when we were in lockdown and our elders couldn’t go to the supermarket we were part of the response to that problem: growing nutritious food that doesn’t have chemicals which we could harvest and provide to our elders so they could continue with their health and well-being.” The land provides a living laboratory, and a fertile home for innovation, for crops such as mushrooms. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei partner with Manaaki Whenua on a project using an invasive weed called privet as the substrate, on which they inoculate edible mushrooms such as pekepekekiore and NZ shitake. “Conventionally privet would be cut and killed with glyphosphate or Round-up,” says Wyatt. “but we have to think of other creative ways to tackle this without chemicals so we decided to turn that privet into a resource and grow mushrooms in it.” While the land is Māori owned Dane is very clear that one of their focuses is community involvement regardless of one’s ethnic origins. “We have external stake-holders from schools to retirement villages, corporates, and NGO’s who love to come and see what we’re doing and be able to participate.” They actively look for school involvement and last year when Ngāti Whātua partnered with the Enviroschools and Council on the moth plant project it provided an opportunity. “Moth plant is another invasive weed,” explains Wyatt. “We worked with Enviroschools to raise awareness and also over the autumn school holidays for kids to collect moth plants and pods throughout their neighbourhoods. We created a competition with prizes and native plant giveaways. That initiative was for all the schools in the Ōrākei local board area with lots of students involved, and I think the number one group collected something like 1,500 moth plant pods and plants.” Dane thinks their nomination for the Sustainable Business Network Award came about from people seeing the significant changes in land usage at Pourewa over a relatively short period of time, in part made possible by their engagement with external stakeholders. “We’re getting enquiries all the time from people and groups who want to come and do a give-back day or just volunteer their time and expertise. We’re proud to be working here but we’re always open to other people’s knowledge, and we always want to bring people together.” As Wyatt explains, “one of the values is manaakitanga (to care for,nourish) and that’s something that Ngāti Whātua continuously shows. For example, Pourewa is 33 hectares that was previously a pony club and nobody had access to it except for a couple of dozen lucky people whereas now it’s a public reserve where anybody can come and enjoy it.”
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