April 2025 project update

This month, Te Hōnonga a Iwi celebrated and thanked Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara for their vision, leadership and three-year partnership with Te Hōnonga a Iwi stakeholders at a special UWEN event. Indigenous knowledge is widely acknowledged as crucial to understand, value and incorporate into climate action for mitigating climate change and increasing biodiversity. In Aotearoa, Te Tiriti provides unique cross-cultural opportunities to guide ecological action through te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori. Kaumatua Richard Nahi, and Matua Tracy Davis and whānau have been instrumental in improving the wellbeing of Te Taiao within our project. The continued commitment by UWEN to ongoing development of iwi partnerships across the upper Waitemāta ecology network is crucial to generate positive change for regenerating depleted ecosystems and for future whānau who live and depend upon the wellbeing of the land and waterways they inhabit. To give you a sense of the opportunity we have been afforded with Richard becoming UWEN’s Kaumatua in April, the following description of Richard’s expertise and experience captures how special he is:

Richard’s father is from the southern reaches of the Kaipara and Mangakahia (Ngāti Rango – Ngāti Whātua & Ngāti Hine – Ngāpuhi) and Whaea Kathleen (Te Hira -Topia - Ihaka) is from both sides of the Hokianga, Whirinaki, Panguru, Motuti, Pawarenga – Northland. His wife, Pearl Uwhinga Hill is from south Kaipara and Awanui/Kaitaia. Richard was educated in Pukekohe, Manukau Polytech, and the University of Auckland and has travelled to Canada, USA, Japan and Tahiti for World Indigenous Conferences on education, health, youth development, and to support the cultural exchange of knowledge. He has served on many community organisations. He is employed by Auckland Council and he’s currently principal cultural tikanga advisor for the Auckland Council in Governance. Richard has also been re-elected to Te Runanga o Ngāti Whātua Trust Board, representing the south Kaipara Takiwa for 15 years. Richard has been a long-time investor in promoting the wellbeing and development of rangatahi, including leading the tribal youth development programme for 15 years – tramping, river canoeing and mountain climbing around the country, sending young people to Outward Bound Anakiwa, leading the tribal team to National Māori touch rugby tournament, Māori Rugby League Tournament, and tribal Pā Wars held in south Kaipara. Richard has actively promoted tribal rights and been involved with protests for Māori rights for the last 40 years. In particular, he was part of the South Kaipara Treaty Claim (1991 – 2013), which was an extensive commitment. Richard became a treaty negotiator after the passing of his father Richard Whero Nahi in 2008. He has continued to teach young people and organisations about Te Tiriti for over 25 years. As well as being Kaumatua for Te Hōnonga a Iwi, Richard has been Kaumatua for Epsom Girls Grammar for more than 12 years and Kaumatua and leader for marae, hapu and iwi of Ngāti Whātua. Beyond all this, Richard loves working with whānau on hangi making and learning – sharing the teachings and knowledge.

Additional actions, outcomes and impacts that have been activated across April include:

-        Ongoing consults with Fulton Hogan (FH) regarding their investment in machine clearing the apex, mulching, cover cropping and planting the apex in 2025. Safe site access and work pressures make this investment challenging. Using our Landowner Approval as a guide and in consultation with Park Ranger, FH identified a safe access route through Hilton Brown Swimming who have kindly granted machine access. We remain indebted to key stakeholders for enabling regenerative action.

-        Wasps have been a notable health and safety issue for us this month. We have worked at checking the site regularly and ahead of working bees. We discovered nine in-ground nests. Auckland Council staff have been outstanding at responding urgently to our notification of a new nest due to the risk to young volunteers. We have notified park ranger Theo Jaycox to ensure he receives timely information of our risks.

-        Elouise, Working Bee Coordinator, is undertaking a review on whether we will bring a beehive to site. We are concerned about their impact on invertebrates and will keep you abreast of our research findings.

-        Blue Nature Aotearoa have been back in touch following the passing of Founder, Nikki Kay. Our UWEN Albany activator, Sarah Wakeford is coordinating connecting with ASHS student needs and opportunity to learn at Te Hono.

-        News regarding a law change for health and safety risk management responsibilities will impact  the way we manage compliance at restorations. We are seeking clarification of responsibilities and risk through Auckland Council.

-        We have moved to using iNaturalist with CAMS for plant pest identification, monitoring and recording as we continue to map 10-square-metre management units across the restoration, map pest plants and begin to manage them in an ordered manner with three youth leadership teams from Kristin and Rangitoto College

-        Elouise is working with two new animal pest management teams Snappy and Timmy. We have changed the trapping model this year to increase safety by working in teams, with a view to centralise trapping, plant pest action and removal of inorganic materials each pass. For now, the focus is education and training new youth leaders to safely monitor, record and manage the traplines.

-        Ethan, youth leader Centurion trapline, has activated 10-15 new trappers for Centurion. It is an extraordinary outcome and youth led. We thank him and all our new restoration heroes who are out there managing animal and plant pests so natives can grow and biodiversity can increase.

-        As we prepare to transition to an incorporated society, we have overhauled and updated our Teams platform that sits with Harbour Hockey in readiness to move to our own Teams site. A reminder that all our photos, videos, documents, national and global research outputs, resources, award applications, funding applications, health and safety PowerPoints, graphics, databases, media releases and communications are filed on the site and accessible to stakeholders via Nicky.

-        The Business Activator youth leadership team, Liam and Chris, met with Sarah Wakeford, the Albany UWEN activator and Nicky Shave, Coordinator Te Hõnonga a Iwi, to discuss what items the team wanted to try to leverage first. We thank the students for their time and initiative to support SMEs to invest in the restoration using their strengths. If members have access to any of the wish list items and would like to invest in the restoration in this way, please contact Nicky on hello@restoringrosedalepark.org.nz and she will connect you with Liam or Chris, both Rangitoto College students

●      underwater monitoring camera - think fish doorbell

●      security camera (product and installation) for the community garden

●      crushed concrete

●      small front loader to remove kikuyu 

●      website, online donation capability and IT support ($2k pa)

●      drone filming for serial site photography

●      wood for constructing a 5.2 by 2.7 m platform and wheelchair ramp for the glasshouse in the new community garden

●      $3k a year for organic vegetable seed sponsorship

●      marketing expertise

●      legal expertise for setting up an Incorporated Society with Charitable status

●      occasional caged trailer rental access

●      occasional plumbing services support for our two water pumps

●      four-by-two offcut recycled posts and used real estate corflute signs to make our own restoration signage (from the waste stream)

●      selection of paints for hand-painted outdoor signage creation (from the waste stream)

●      three clean water recycled free IBC tanks for the chickens water (from the waste stream)

●      Pergoda Blinds 4m2 for shelter from weather in the new community food garden

●      three wheelbarrows

●      garden bench seat

●      garden tools

●      two hoses

-        We thank Amelia from Mayne Wetherell for their willingness to support our transitions to an Incorporated Society and for reaching out to advertise restoration mahi with their staff

-        Elouise attended the Te Aka Kōtuia Annual Nursery Hui at Kaipatiki Project this month. We are on a steep learning curve in terms of cultivating natives and fruit and vegetables. The opportunity to visit and learn from local experts is appreciated and welcomed by us. Elouise came away with excellent documents and greater understanding on what's possible for us to improve. We will be taking these learnings forward as we establish the community garden shadehouse (supported by Auckland Council Park Ranger, Theo Jaycox) and amplify growing our natives from locally sourced seeds.

-        As we finish another month we want to thank Freshwater Monitoring leaders Eva and Marina for their work analysing freshwater metrics monthly across the year.

-        Senior lecturer Environmental Science, AUT, Craig Bishop brought his third-year students to the restoration. Their work is on the back of other data we routinely collect, enabling us to get a greater sense of the health of the catchment and the riparian plantings along Alexander Stream. This month they focused on:

●      Measuring carbon and regeneration of seedlings in one or more of our recently planted areas of native vegetation to develop a good baseline for future change

●      An ecosystem and weed map of the wider Rosedale Park gully

●      Wetland vegetation map and condition assessment at that location.

-        We have applied for $97,326.50 funds to meet the $107,363.20 target to complete phase two of the community food garden build that includes funding for/towards a wheelchair accessible glasshouse and shadehouse, ramps for wheelchair access, timber platforms for all weather access to the houses, a pergola that offers shelter to work under, two 30,000-litre water tanks with fittings and installation, garden irrigation to all structures including the water tank pergola, the six vertical walls, two raised table beds, glasshouse, shadehouse, rat proof composting units and the syntropic food garden. We have confirmed funding for the shadehouse, the shed, the workbench table and bench seats, the gazebo, single seating for the raised tables, IBCs for shadehouse water misting, journalism signage, water, electricity, advisory planning services, LOA costs, event management, facility use, marcomms, morning tea for construction day, biomass for composting, 18m3 mulch for pathways and half the shelter pergola. We are working hard to secure $47 414.25 integrated value (in-kind support) for the community garden this year. We thank Jody Gillfillan, Financial Officer, Te Hono, for formulating the budget for Phase Two funding applications and UWEN for umbrellering Te Hono during this time of transition. The workload impact on UWEN as our umbrella organisation has been significant, and unexpected. We appreciate their swift support to enable applications to be submitted. Each award, LOA, conference or funding application is at least a day's work, at times, for LOA, a week's work. Every application is unique and requires different evidence and responses. Over 160 hours per annum would be spent on applications. If you can spare time to support the project in this way, please let us know. The skills required for the role are specific and it's important for any project to have continuous expertise in this space to enable resilience - skills matrix and succession planning documents should reflect this skill as a priority. Third party endorsement through awards and conferences, media releases and academic outputs supports future pipelines of investors.

-        North Harbour Hockey Association has applied for the Sports NZ environmental sustainability award 2025 to acknowledge its Waste Zero 2027 programme and funnelling organic waste to site rather than to fill to make compost. Together with A1 Landscapes and Grow My Greens, we have up to 10 tonnes of biomass coming to site to compost annually now.

-        We welcomed foundation stakeholders Davenport's Law Sustainability Group to the restoration. Showing the team the cover crops that they have sponsored for three and having the opportunity to share why they are so important to us as we regenerate the native bush was special. Thank you for joining us!

-        Massey University academic Cadey Korson continues to work on finalising the year-long documentary on our social value chain. Reading her draft script was enlightening and we look forward to the insights of our people that Cadey filmed in our first operating year. Also, the knowledge she generated in terms of improving our offerings as we develop.

-        The second set of community garden soil samples were delivered by hand to master’s student Peter (Auckland University) to analyse for the presence of heavy metals which would prohibit us from inground planting at the food garden. The results are due shortly.

-        We thank Kelmarna Gardens for hosting us and sharing their knowledge with us so we can learn from their model. They are exemplary gardeners and we have much to learn. Key takeaways from their visit as their work relates to our new garden include:

●      build a network of volunteers with different useful skills e.g. construction, irrigation, etc. that can be on call out e.g. through the newsletter, if we have a particular task we need help with as a one-off

●      think about long-term funding as often there is a lot available for the set up but it gets tricky to maintain. Sarah recommended thinking about what model would suit us best in terms of paid staff, what would be a realistic strategy for us.

●      Since the garden is in a public space, we need to be mindful of harvesting techniques and amount of harvest – our only idea was to have good signage. (Kelmarna only allow harvest with supervision of their paid staff) Signs like how to harvest and not to take more than you need, etc

●      Need to make sure the shed is super secure, sheds are often a target

●      Might need to allow space in the shade house for some propagation (although could stick to keeping seedling trays off site with volunteers looking after them to save us space)

●      Recommended talking to Ali from Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa and joining the Gardens 4 Health network https://www.diabetesfoundationaotearoa.nz/gardens-4-health/

●      In terms of resources, Kelmarna use:

-        Kings seeds

-        Bark and Soil Growing Media (Whenuapai) for organic compost

-        “Carbon Cycle” rat proof compost

●      They noticed a difference in their gardens when they didn’t have honey bees around for a while (sounds like they are difficult to maintain because of costs so they had issues there for a bit)  Te Hono is researching the bee situation as they may impact native invertebrates. Research is quite scarce but generally honey bees pollinate exotic species so great for food garden and pollinating weed species

●      Kelmarna gets compost from the community and local businesses and noticed a loss in compost resource when the council introduced food scrap bins- not a problem for Te Hono.

●      Can DIY cloches with plastic bottles - these protect seedlings when first planted into garden

●      For food forest: work out which fruit trees are a priority and then work out what you can layer from there to make it low maintenance

●      Can go through Kelmarna’s volunteer training system for practical skills and a more in-depth view of their processes.

-        The plant pest management mapping team continues to plug away at staking out management units, mapping pest plants and we have a team starting to remove the plants for composting or drowning. Theo Jaycox, Park Ranger, Auckland Council has kindly supplied us with more flax knives (n=100), gloves to enable us to scale releasing and removal as we grow. Thank you, Auckland Council!

-        We have another cultural induction opportunity through Auckland Council that is led by mana whenua Te Kawarau ā Maki. Please let me know if you are interested in putting your name forward to attend this special opportunity to increase cultural awareness.

-        We have experienced, and acknowledge, the increase in requests from our youth to work across times that suit them best, for five, that is in the holiday break. We ensure we can work for an hour after school for bite-sized working bees that do not become too onerous, for most students, it's a sat am or sun pm that works best. Several students who work in the consulting, governance and business activation areas of the project, we meet virtually in the evenings. Having safe, secure communication networks set up to enable young people to link in as they can is so important to ensure we respect one of our largest volunteer group’s needs and expectations. We encourage flex and adaptability and it works. Thank you all, you are ensuring we are future ready!

-        We have met with the Northern Health School teacher aid to discuss the potential to partner with the school to support the promotion of wellbeing for students attending the school. We look forward to understanding how we can support young people to feel positive about climate action and being in nature, undertaking nature-based solutions.

-        We need to offer to reactivate partnerships with ASHS, Wairau Valley Special School and AGE school. Increased workloads as we scale has resulted in a decrease in communications with current partners, which needs managing and improvement.

-        We are so excited to be in a position to continue to work in partnership with fresh water ecologist at Mountain to Sea. Amy Sadler is a week away from maternity leave. We all wish her well for the safe arrival of her pepe and thank her for her leadership with growing our knowledge and understanding of the wellbeing of the Alexander Stream. Reminder to the team the value of Amy’s work in finding the following:

-        For this year's survey we caught no gambusia or other pest fish; in 2022/23 they caught 8 individuals (and observed many swimming in the awa)

-        We caught only 4 banded kōkopu; in 2022/23 they caught 8 individuals

-        We caught 5 tuna (long- and short-fin); in 2022/23 they caught 3 individuals

-        We caught 4 Cran's bully and no common bully; in 2022/23 they caught 12 Common bully (some of these may have been misidentified as Common, as surely there were Cran's bully present back then, too!)

-        The conservation status (which you can find in the attached AC report for 2023/2024 statuses) of the ika we caught:

●      Cran's bully / Titikura: At risk - Regionally declining in Auckland & Nationally not threatened

●      Longfin eel / Tuna: At risk - Regionally and Nationally declining

●      Banded kōkopu / Kōkopu Taiwhara: Regionally and Nationally not threatened

●      Shortfin eel / Tuna, Hau:  Regionally and Nationally not threatened

-        Amy, MTS has designed two draft restoration plans that will help us to restore upstream from Paul Matthews Drive. We need to make a choice as to what one suits our needs best. We have no budget for this, rather we will use the guidance to ensure best practice over time as we head upstream to manage tradescantia ahead of coming back to the wetland area below the 2023 site.

-        Option one: Restoring Nature Ltd. - Preliminary desktop-based planting plan

●      would be good for very initial restoration planning and efforts, small-scale

●      can be supplied to AC/heritage team for approval if required

-        Option two: Te Ngahere Restoration Plan - flexible depending on your preferred scope

●      Can allow for site visits and some engagement i.e. with Te Hōno and potentially other stakeholders

●      Can request to encompass pest control and longer-term site management as well as planting planning, dependent on budget.

-        Theo Jaycox, identified an alternate model that was commissioned for Oneoneroa rep restoration that is underpinned by mātaraunga Māori which aligns with our partnership with iwi/mana whenua. Aspects of the Oneoneroa model may be included in our next restoration plan. Having local ecological and community development expertise, readily available and accessible through Council and NGOs, has been instrumental to Te Hōnonga a Iwi’s ability to get off the ground and grow. We have found organisations, and individuals, that are willing to support and work hard to respond to our questions and need for guidance at pivotal times within the project. Having access to these experts, in timely ways, ensures we don't stall unnecessarily and significantly helps to develop our momentum, important for our volunteers and nature. Thank you team - Auckland Council and ecological NGOs are essential partners to generate our outcomes.

-        We continue to support the regional network’s strategic development - this partnership with the umbrella network enables us to invest in their resilience and growth. Whilst working on the strategy together, we continue to gain insight into who we will become and greater understanding on how we will get there. It's a win-win.

-        We received feedback from our Auckland Council Let’s Protect the Environment response Summary of Feedback Report. We have caught and assessed 17 wild cats in two years at Te Hono, with more generations of cats breeding wild within the park. Because we have to manage wild cats and their profound impact on a regenerating ecosystem, we are interested in the results. The environment project team state that:

●      There is strong support for responsible cat ownership measures in Auckland, particularly for compulsory cat desexing and microchipping

●      Respondents endorse measures that reduce the impact and spread of invasive species

●      Over 70% of people support climate change impact-reduction measures

●      Respondents would like better communication on how to protect the environment, limit the spread of pests, and be a responsible pet or boat owner.

-        We have opportunity to send volunteers on a cultural induction led by Te Kawarau ā Maki on 8 May 4- 6 pm, 6-8 Munroe Place, If you would like to be a part of this, please email Sinead on sinead.brimacombe@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

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Thank you all for your effort and collaboration - we are achieving good results that will offer a legacy you can be proud of.