This month we highlight the work of our youth leaders, focus on water supply and water quality and begin to look at priorities for 2023.
· Te Hōnonga a Iwi was delighted to win the the Margin Gains Community Impact Award at the 2022 Harbour Sports Harbour Sports Excellence Awards. The project was also shortlisted for the Caring for the Land, Caring for the People Kūmara Placemakers Award Tāmaki Makaurau 2022. Congratulations to the winner of the category Whenua Warriors. Kaumatua Richard Nahi and Brad Clark represented Te Hōnonga a Iwi at both award ceremonies.
· Congratulations to one of our founding youth leaders, Amelia Sangster on her new sustainable procurement role within the graduate programme at Auckland Transport! Bravo! We look forward to hearing what you are achieving in that space and thank you for your continued loyalty with Te Hōnonga a Iwi.
· We welcome two new sets of youth leaders to the project, Rangitoto College Student Ceinwen Evans and family who are leading the plant survival and plant growth rates. Ceinwen has identified 5 separate 2m radius plant sites and will be measuring survival and growth over time. Rangitoto and Kristin alumni, Caleb Young and Miriam Scott are managing the recycled and rainwater roof collect water supply for the bioreactors. This work involves weekly checking of the pump filters, drip lines, sighting water levels and making informed decisions about ordering and delivery of recycled water from Watercare and Ventia.
· Local youth have invested heavily in Te Hōnonga a Iwi and our dynamic youth leaders offer huge value to the project with their mahi, their developing knowledge and expertise and their teamwork to ensure best practice and data capture. As the year draws to a close it seems appropriate to thank Peter Felstead, Lavender Feng, Sophie Haine, Matthew Lee, Amelia Sangster, Ceinwen Evans, Caleb Young and Miriam Scott especially for their ongoing work in the field. We also wish to celebrate all the students who put in hundreds of hours of work during their school visits. The website has a great article written by journalist Sheryl Blythen, BeMedia, highlighting youth leadership on the project.
· Our Water Quality Youth Team need two more young people who are interested in taking a role as a Freshwater Quality analyst! Please contact hello@restoringrosedalepark if you feel this is a role that you would like to be involved with. The position involves sharing monthly water testing of the Alexander Stream. Given you will be at the stream edge, water quality testers must have support from a responsible adult to fulfil this role. All training given.
· We welcome Gurit, an international renewable energy organisation whose National Office is in Rosedale, to the Project. Gurit will be undertaking untangling the weeds, retrieving inorganic waste and spreading the gravel on site on International Volunteer Day, December 5, 2-4 pm.
· A new community member has reached out and we welcome Stanley Frielick.
· Matt from Untangled, Bryce Collins, and Sarah Hoessler finished securing the ICB rainwater supply with the installation of a header tank and the installation of a pump that shifts the water up to the IBC platform. We are using rainwater as we can and topping up with recycled water.
· Sam Hill, Head of Natural Environment Specialist Services, Auckland Council has been instrumental in connecting the restoration with industry experts. Robyn Simcock, Landcare Research is one of them. Robyn has shared literature regarding tree LCA and more recently has kindly shared significant ideas regarding the opportunity to have a native cover crop. This idea has been taken a step further with discussions around planting native cover crops that can offer food harvest in addition to all the work the current crops offer the restoration. Toatoa, Haloragis Erecta, or Carex is a potential future cover crop for restorations to consider for their sites. Racheal Stanley, Auckland Council has also responded with important information regarding cover crops. We are appreciative of the time and effort experts invest in community-led initiatives.
· Kristin and Westminster Christian School both walked 2.2 and 2.6 km respectively to the recent on-site working bee which culminated in 30 students and teachers sowing the last of the cover crop seeds and shifting some of the branch piles to reduce risk of fire and mitigate the risk of difficult to remove pest plants growing in branch piles. Huge thanks to both school for their mahi on site over the year. It’s been wonderful to observe the benefits of schools uniting and enjoying working together for common purpose. Even more exciting to be a part of school’s commitment to sustainability and driving down carbon emissions by walking to site.
· We are working hard with Amelia Sangster, Amanda Green, Warwick Stent, Associate Professor of Accounting at Massey University and statistician Sarah Hoessler to generate a materiality matrix we can use to determine stakeholders’ priorities for NHHA 2023 integrated reporting. We are developing a survey link that is now live. And will continue to build understanding of the process in readiness for delivering the first NHHA Integrated Value Report from May 2023. This will replace the traditional financial report format for NHHA eg profit and loss. There has been significant discussion about how we ensure we value all stakeholders within the NHHA IVR. Warwick and Amanda are helping us gain clarity with the process and Sarah’s expertise in data analytics will enable us to use our data in a way that is cognisant of realising stakeholder’s contributions to the value chain. We are hopeful that we will produce a quality piece that can be used as a framework for local organisations to increase their integrated reporting outputs should they wish to do so.
· We convened the first community-wide freshwater quality meeting hosted by NHHA. Attendees included representatives from Upper Harbour Local Board, Healthy Waters, Sustainable Schools, UWEN, The Landing and NHHA. As a result, we are supporting Brian Hedley to present to the Upper Harbour Local Board this Thursday with a view to request support for a community-based catchment wide freshwater quality initiative, hopefully led by local youth and supported by Te Hononga a Iwi to be the first youth-led water quality initiative in NZ. This result is leveraging off the increased local regeneration connectivity in Oteha and in recognition of the fact that the community has reached a tipping point where, without too much more work, we would be better to unite and ensure coordinated testing of all the waterways than continue to operate as distinct silos. Aside from offering healthy options to connect young people, and a meaningful opportunity to improve environmental health, the potential for attracting and retaining youth into new community wide roles may be an associated benefit of this work. Te Hōno would like the opportunity to work with stakeholders to recommend ‘grouping local environmental cares’ so we can support youth to learn a ‘package of skills’ that will offer time efficiencies and future career opportunities including support and education around regeneration of biomes, pest management, water quality, bird counts, bat counts, bio aquatic species counts. The stakeholder group for the catchment-wide freshwater meets again on December 8, 10 - 1130 am at NHHA (all welcome) to consolidate a plan going forward following feedback from the Local Board. We are fortunate to have two industry experts from council speaking at the meeting to impart their knowledge of local freshwater ways.
· Rhiannon Leddra, UWEN and Nicky Shave, NHHA are undertaking a 4-week Life Cycle Analysis course at Massey University. We are working towards increasing our internal knowledge of LCA. This will help support better sustainability decisions with supply chain procurement and develop capability to further drive down organisational carbon emissions.
· Te Hōno journalist and hockey player Sheryl Blythen has averaged a story a week for the Restoring Rosedale Park website. Please look at the current ones, all highlighting NHHA venue or people. Ensuring transparency through regular communication of our sustainability journey is a pivotal part of Te Hōnonga a Iwi ability to develop trust within the community, increase our likelihood of securing public or private funding and attracting and retaining talented contributors and stakeholders.
· We are working on a big piece to determine our carbon footprint with EKOS, funded by Jade Li and NEDF. This is a time-consuming and complex project, and we hope that we will be able to identify if Te Hōno has been able to function in a climate positive manner throughout 2022. If so, we believe that that might be a first for a restoration in NZ. It will take NHHA 40 hours to complete the data set required.
· UN SDG alignment graphic- we are working on finalising the graphic for the Te Hono regeneration model and how we have aligned output with the UN SDGs. Hockey Player and project graphic designer, Sam Weston has agreed to produce the graphic for us.
· Te Hōnonga a Iwi submitted feedback, with guidance from Nicholas Mayne and UWEN, for the draft Upper Harbour Local Parks Management Plan – Rosedale Park. The submission focussed on the capacity to receive council support for ongoing planting, the request to address the dangerous, aging tree issue in the park and the need for ongoing support for path development and stream health.
· Nicky Shave presented Te Hōnonga a Iwi project model and outputs to the Women4Climate event, hosted by Auckland Council. We are thankful to have had Auckland Council supply the resources for valuable mentorship across the year. Sam Hill is an inspiring mentor, strategist, networker and kind supporter of Te Hōnonga a Iwi throughout our first year of operating. Her support has enabled us to scan the horizon, pack in as much sustainable gain as we could ahead of the start of the project and obtain immediate access to guidance and expertise we would not have had otherwise. Huge thanks for the positive difference you have made Sam.
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