Tamariki, community, and planting! A powerful way to acknowledge the rising of the Matariki cluster in our skies. Starting off with a hikoi to the Hall in typical rural style, we had to navigate the droving of a few hundred head of cattle on the road!
School Principal Jo Larsen opened the occasion with a reminder of the significance of the Matariki celebrations; a time to reflect on the previous year, mourn, and remember those no longer with us and look ahead to the coming year. After a karakia, the tamariki and community including the guests from the planting team from Logic Forest Solutions, we tackled the task of planting a variety of Harakeke Flax around the driveway to both secure the edges and also enhance the food source for our birds.
Afterwards, we headed back to school. The children sang a waiata, which the planting crew responded with a Fijian waiata. After karakia mo te kai (grace), we enjoyed a well-earned cuppa and shared kai.
Many thanks to all those who were able to join in this lovely morning. Happy Matariki whanau!
This week the Guardians met as a whole community to share a lunch prepared by Senior Rural Advisor Alice Wilson and be inspired by our newest Wai Connections employees Sam & Anne-Marrie. Sam (the trap man) shared the work he has been doing with a similar Catchment to restore a breeding population of Whio. We currently have a pair in the upper catchment on Nga Tuhoe station and with pest management it is absolutely possible to have a massive result. Sam also talked about how reducing on-farm pests can have a significant impact on other native species such as kiwi, other birds and bats. “It is absolutely possible to hear kiwi and other native birds from your porch”, says Sam. Farm buildings and patches of reverting bush provide excellent habitat- we just need to eliminate the pests!” Follow Sam here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100050646522100
On Tuesday 7th May we had our first full Integrated Catchment Workshop for 2024. We had deliberately given our farmers ‘space’ from this mahi, as we had all been successful in being accepted into the NZ Vet Council initiative to deliver individualised Animal Health & Biosecurity plans by our local vets.
The day began with AgRecycling and a chance to catchup with neighbours over lunch.
We had a brief refocus session to allow people to see how the pieces fit together and where we are ‘up to’ in achieving our ultimate goal of all Guardians of the Ruakituri properties having a comprehensive Integrated Farm Plan. The land Use mapping is ongoing, with Pete Mansen continuing to visit on farms and the timing/coverage plan was shared:
The focus of the day was within the ‘people’ section of the plan. The Guardians were provided with a selection of providers to assist with ensuring they had the knowledge and provision to be ‘checking off’ the essential items within their own plans.
Guardians of the Ruakituri Chair; Nuku Hadfield welcomes everyone and opens the workshop
A huge thank you to all these providers for making themselves available, it was a really rich environment for our farmers to engage with services on an individual and need to basis.
The remaining significant aspect is the Health & Safety Plans. These are highly individual and quite extensive so will be achieved as part of the On-Farm Visit series. Our special thanks go to Shanna from Agfirst Gisborne for facilitating the day.
It’s been a pretty tough winter for those of us in the valley. The only way in or out continues to be via the Ohuka Road and while QRS has worked constantly to keep this access road open for us the weather has been challenging and progress on the new temporary bridge remains sluggish. This long trip has been hard on families and farming businesses alike.
The Guardians have been actively supporting our community, as always. We have been lobbying to ensure solutions could be found as quickly as possible for the Mangaroa and Papuni Roads, including practical support for properties that were needing to trans-ship stock or drove stock into neighbours yards for loading. Great to finally see Papuni Road in action again!
We have been successful in two NIWE MPI grants which have paid for the installation of new Cattle Stops along the main road. This funding allowed the replacement to happen just in the nick of time as they were really starting to break-down. The second grant has supported the replacement of road and boundary fencing for properties that were impacted during the February weather events.
During the year the Guardians have facilitated several voucher drops for our community to support both the actual costs of the long journey into town and also to provide much-needed mental wellbeing support with a physical reminder that we haven’t been forgotten. Special thanks to the Wairoa Mayoral Relief Fund, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Relief Trust & the Ministry for Primary Industries for their ongoing support.
The Ruakituri Community Lunch was an opportunity to come together in the spirit of Matariki to reflect on the previous year, acknowledge those who are no longer with us, and launch our two Catchment Projects.
Councilor Charles Lambert opened our hui with a karakia acknowledging Matariki and the importance of community, this was followed by our Chair Nuku Hadfield who welcomed our many important visitors and the community gathered. She made special note of those who had passed away and also the beautiful table decorations that the Ruakituri School children had made with harakeke woven stars. Nuku was easily able to align the significance of each of the stars within the Matariki cluster to our lives as growers of food and people passionate about the environment in which we live and the two projects we were gathered together to celebrate and understand.
Our Keynote speaker was David Todd from Toddy Talks. Toddy grew up on a farm in central Hawkes Bay, went into Rural Banking around Tairawhiti and recalled some funny times as a young banker visiting a property within the valley. He spoke on this occasion as part of the team from Rural Support Trust who are passionate and working towards improving rural mental wellbeing. He provided some down-to-earth techniques and tips for everyone to build into their own lives and take active steps towards building their own ‘top two inches’ of well-being. Johnathan Bell and Kylie Brown were also in attendance to support those who may want to reach out in the future.
The first Project Launch is the IFP project. This is a 4-year project to improve farmer confidence and capability with strong outcomes for the farming business and the environment. This has come about via funding received from the Ministry for Primary Industries and it was great to have Rachel Agnew and Doug Bailey from MPI to share in the celebrations. Genevieve Bennet has been our champion from MPI along with Kate Wood to move this project through the red tape!
The project is being managed through Agfirst Gisborne. Shanna Cairns and Peter Manson both provided a summary of the Integrated Farm Planning Project. A strong theme is that the programme of work must be led and directed by the farmers of the Ruakituri and that the team at Agfirst will provide guidance, oversight and expertise to help farmers achieve their own visions and goals. Agfirst will ensure that woven through all pogrammes will be best practice for the soils we have and an outcome will be that we will be upskilled to reach high levels of regulatory compliance in a deliberate way and lean on and influence decision makers with our collective lived wisdoms.
Our second project to launch is the yet-to-be-named “Community Catchment Project’. We have received seed funding from the Department of Internal Affairs and will be seeking further funds to progress this initiative over the coming months and years.
We are incredibly lucky to have Simon Stokes managing this project, Simon has a long connection to the area and is passionate about community involvement and the collective power of engaging all stakeholders, building on and embedding our history and keeping a strong focus on both short and very long term goals and the nature of the outcomes taking time. Simon was able to establish the beginning of a steering group to guide this mahi and the invitation stands for others to join in with this kaupapa when and as they can.
To round out the morning, James Brownlie presented the certificates to those who had recently completed the Wheels, Tracks, and Rollers licensing course and the community acknowledged the time and huge commitment put in by James and his staff supported by Geoff Smith in towing 82 trucks up the road to maintain access for stock in and out of the valley over the past 18 months.
It was great to have the children from the kura join us as Willie Jackson offered a blessing and grace for the community to enjoy a lovely lunch prepared by Emma Morton and her team.
the Guardians stayed on after lunch for a Catchment Workshop to give Shanna and Pete a steer on the programme for the next few months. It was wonderful to have Dave Withers and Archie Smith able to connect the importance of historical achievements as a foundation to move into the next phase.
The event was organised and MC’d by Di Roadley Guardians of the Ruakituri Coordinator
The Guardians have been accepted into a water sampling project to establish our Baseline information. Te Urewera to Whakapunake will give a snapshot answer to the question “What’s in our awa?”
The students at Ruakituri School will be helping with the sampling which involves the Gold standard process of taking 6 samples at each site. We have selected 3 sites; the top, middle, and bottom of the valley.
This is a great opportunity to gather this information in a scientific way. The intension is that this process will be repeated over time and we will see how our efforts on farms are being reflected in our river.
The Guardians of the Ruakituri 