August 2025 project update

It is our third birthday! Congratulations Te Hōnonga a Iwi and all its incredible, innovative stakeholders for your outstanding achievements across three years. What a journey! It is fitting that we enjoyed our first Te Hōnonga Iwi Stategy Committee meeting ratifying the new constitution last week. Transitioning from under North Harbour Hockey and, more recently, Upper Waitematā Ecology Network’s umbrellas will enable us to grow, contract support and invest in succession planning to ensure ongoing sustainability and organisational resilience. We thank Te Hōnonga a Iwi Chair, Sheryl Blythen, Secretary Matthew Wardle, governance Rangitahi Melanie Mayall-Nahi and Treasurer Jody Gilfillan for their commitment as a Board. The strategy committee news story offers insight into the new team too.

We thank Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara, the North Harbour Hockey Association and UWEN for several years of work to get us to this point. As part of their ongoing BCorp commitments, Mayne Wetherell lawyers Matthew Olson and Amelia Porteous reached out to volunteer to plant at the project this year. They have achieved that goal and amplified their impact by leading us as we formed an incorporated society with soon-to-be charitable status. An epic effort from Matthew and Amelia when they originally thought they'd be planting natives! Mayne Wetherell’s impacts highlight decarbonisation and climate action opportunities SMEs and the corporate sector have available to them to own their responsibility for reducing emissions, increasing social equity, mitigating climate change and investing in regenerating the natural world their livelihoods and communities depend on. BCorp organisations like Mayell Wetherell perceive nature as a stakeholder in the sector's future outcomes. Rewiring the economy to view nature in this way enables the sector to distance themselves from seeing nature as an infinite resource. Instead, flipping the lid on traditional economic models increases the likelihood that businesses will invest in nature as a beneficiary. Mayne Wetherell became the 72^nd organisation to invest in Te Hōnonga a Iwi as a nature-based solution. This metric sheds light on businesses building interest to change their BAU to reflect environmental health as an opportunity to promote long term resilience or prevent becoming obsolete. Huge thanks to this group, and welcome to you all as we enter a new phase in our journey to tread more lightly as we increase soil health, canopy cover, biodiversity, individual, community and environmental health.

We use a transformational leadership model that enables each volunteer or organisation to contribute value to the restoration based on utilising their strengths. Operating a voluntary project this way creates new value with minimal impact on our stakeholders, including the atmosphere, land and water ecosystems. Our value chain at three years sits at around $820,000 integrated value, a remarkable testament to all of you.

As we reach canopy cover on our third birthday, we believe we have initial proof of concept that small business can successfully work in sustainable partnership with iwi, and the commercial, public, community, sports, education, and NGO sectors to regenerate the soil. With this understanding, we have entered the Mitre 10 Community of the Year category at the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year awards. We made the decision to enter with the hope that the exposure might generate community feedback that will allow us to improve leveraging health, climate action, social cohesion and biodiversity. Entering awards offers important third-party endorsement from experts that help to validate the social, business, regenerative and sustainability methods we use. As important, the process is a conduit for information sharing and magnifies capacity for New Zealanders to unite in promoting social cohesion and climate action across the motu. Scaling regenerative action at pace is crucial for future generations and the health of the ecosystems they inhabit and depend on socially, culturally and economically. If you find our resources or learnings useful, please make them your own to enable collective action across the motu.

In addition to these pieces, the following actions and outcomes were achieved across August:

-        Daniel Tiong has now joined the team as Working Bee Coordinator. He is out of this world good, a third year Enviro Sci/Ecology student and he is really enjoying being with people at work rather than trapping alone as he has done previously.  Huge, warm welcome Daniel, we are fortunate indeed to work with you.

-        The wonderful trapping team, supported by UWEN Pest Manager Louis, completed the installation of our second trapline that includes Goodnature, DOC200, Flipping Timmy, T-Rex and Trapinators. We could not control plant or animal pests without Auckland Council and Upper Harbour Local Board’s significant investment in defending native fauna and flora. Rosedale Park is coming to life as 10,000 new natives in our area alone develop and reach canopy cover. It feels and looks like a different place, which is exciting for many founding partners and volunteers.

-        Viridis Environmental Consultants reached out and kindly loaned us a bird call monitor enabling us to capture bird song as a measure of wildlife abundance going forward. The environmental science and ecology team at Viridis are new partners who will kindly visit the site, offer us data/graph making skills to better demonstrate environmental health metrics.

-        Grant Allen, Viridis Director has offered his ongoing expertise as part of our new Think Tank team, who give us 90 minutes four times a year to take a deep dive into a strategic challenge or opportunity. Having expertise from wide paradigms of knowledge is important for us given the complexity of the systemic pressures that impact us from global, national, regional and local sources. We thank Grant for his time and look forward to our first Think Tank in October.

-        Our foundation academic leader Cadey Korson has agreed to become a strategic consultant on the Think Tank too. We are delighted to retain Cadey’s commitment to Te Hōnonga a Iwi as her year-long documentary on our social value chain nears being published. Cadey’s expertise in social geography and the use of media to uncover new knowledge is an irreplaceable asset for the restoration. She envisages listening, and offering suggestions, pathways, or adjustments to how information is gathered and recorded to maximize the potential for both "academic" reporting and general public facing outputs. This would complement existing scientific and media teams. We all hope Cadey will be a part of ongoing efforts to record the life of the project and invest in mentoring youth leaders, identifying grant opportunities or partnerships, liaise with expertise in other parts of NZ or globally, and continue to longitudinally record the social value of the project. Thanks so much Cadey for making a valuable and consistent impact for nature and society.

-        The team of Kristin students completed the final details of our 29 new signs that will be placed by the signage students across September. The signs are bright and look fantastic. Graphic Designer Sam is thrilled with the outcome and the process. Huge thanks to Sam, Elouise, Fareh and all the students who have given us the ability to bring the place to life from a cultural perspective. Signs of this nature build a sense of ownership and belonging. Using recycled, repurposed, repaired and reused materials are favoured by us ahead of purchasing a new product as a means of increasing circularity and decarbonising.

-        We welcomed two new Chinese community groups from the North Shore and Sunnynook Chinese Associations who were amazing and worked tirelessly to plant hundreds of natives in their time with us. Our local Chinese people are experienced with horticulture and know how to ensure plant growth and survival. It is always special to have time working together, learning about the Chinese culture and customs and being able to get to know each other. Thank you all for all you do for our communities. And thank you to Daniel Dong, Harbour Sports, for his amazing support to ensure the experience is positive and valuable for everyone. 

-        In addition to trappers in Centurion Reserve, led by Ethan, our plant pest, water quality, management unit, graphics, communications, strategy, chicken carer, community garden, backyard nursery, business activator and working bee youth leaders were also quietly going about their mahi within the restoration. We are grateful for their seamless service to nature, society and the future planet. And we cannot underestimate this group's value to the outcomes of the project.

-        We welcomed Ash Bickley from Love Wanaka to tour the restoration ahead of attending the Sustainable Business Network conference that focussed on closing the financing nature gap this year. You can look at the presentations on the SBN website. If you'd like to have a chat about the hot topics like biodiversity and carbon capture future funding streams, we are always keen to catch up. Just send an email on hello@restoringrosedalepark.

-        We have reached out to Planetary Accounting NZ following the conference to ask for their support to account for our restoration impact. We will inform you of the outcome.

-        We met Gareth Parry, PWC Managing Director, on site to show him around with rangitahi and receive feedback on how we can strengthen our future economic model. Huge thanks Gareth, you’re a brilliant person and we enjoyed thinking about the future with you.

-        We also spoke with Ben from Athletes for Nature to connect and talk about their amazing work. We will apply to be an affiliate member of this network, which is free and offers wider connection opportunities to grow the kaupapa.

-        Our Business Activator youth leaders have met to plan approaching local businesses to support chicken feed, security and insurance at the mara kai, and developing a future student pipeline. These students are courageous picking up the phone, when so few do so these days to speak with industry leaders to request they invest in climate action. Thank you, team!

-        The home school, Rangitoto College, Albany Junior High School, Wilson School, Kristin School network all contributed massive value across August at working bees to get the last half of our plants in place.

-        We confirm we are building our policy suite in readiness to become our own entity, completed our strategic roadmap, completed our proposal for requesting Upper Harbour Local Board funding for working bee coordinator and activator hours, under UWEN’s group fund umbrella. We will inform you of the outcomes.

-        We visited 15 older adults at Bupa Hugh Green Retirement centre to present our model, share results and talk about how we could do better from their life experience/professional lens. We agreed we needed to develop a pamphlet for older adults to have accessibility to the project, that seed and tray delivery to the centre would enable older adults to start growing natives or vege seedlings for us. We are arranging morning tea down at the site to show the Hugh Green team the different aspects of the restoration and get some more insights into what they see might help us scale at pace.

-        We thank Theo and Auckland Council for the extra 2000 stakes that enable us to identify the year of planting as we infill to ensure we can still undertake annual plant growth and survival rates effectively. Planting into a 70-year-old patch of kikuyu is high risk for losing an unstaked native so we really appreciate that visual cue that is reusable and made from waste green material.

-        Local people George North from A1 Tree Care and Graydon from Atlas are working hard on Te Hōnonga a Iwi behalf to get five truckloads of green waste into the back of the restoration to start building soil in the chicken area. We are so grateful to these companies for their effort for nature and climate change. The chickens will work the green waste and offer inground composting to enable us to plant in quality soil in several years.

-        Our local favs, the tamariki at Busy Bees ECE, undertook their annual pilgrimage to work in the mara kai. These littlies walk three km return to drive down emissions and enjoy the park grounds, developing a love for nature and belonging in the park.

-        Bex and Luke, soil health gurus, came to visit the restoration. They are amazing and can support Matt Cummings' vision to build soil health regeneratively by teaching us how to measure soil health and by undertaking a qualitative soil microscopy on site.  We hope to work with Wilson School to learn soil health measures and document the biome over time. It's an exciting partnership moving forward.

-        Liane Makey from University of Auckland, is undertaking soil microscopy research, she is advertising for soil to analyse in restorations. We have contacted her to ask for consideration to be a part of her project.

-        We continue to be supplied with regular sources of organic coir matting from Grow My Greens. The owner, Cat, has given us a massive bag of radish seeds she's hoping we can give to students to plant microgreens at home and in the glasshouse, due to be installed this month.

-        We attended UWEN rail trail, plant and animal pest management, operational and strategic meetings continuing to learn from experts.

-        Phillip caught the 21st cat in the live trap this month, and Albany Vet determined the cat to be feral.

-        We continue to think about decarbonising through promoting busing, walking, biking or car sharing on the way to the restoration. A number of businesses, NGO, schools, older adults, and the ECE all walk to sites which amount to brilliant local action!

-        Greer Rasmussen from Auckland Council has reached out to float the idea of Te Hono and Kaipatiki hosting another Travel Lightly Bike Pop Up. We look forward to working together again in late October.

-        We met with sustainability lead Kirsty from Sport New Zealand to talk about supporting sports organisations to undertake a climate commitment and look forward to raising the bar together.

-        We had a meeting with Stacey Poata who leads the Living Labs project and is studying forest restoration and different methods of tree growth at AUT. We enjoyed hearing what is happening with both projects and agreed we would work together in some capacity soon.

-        We agreed to present at the Hockey New Zealand leaders conference to talk with national hockey leaders about the role of sustainability in organisational resilience and growth, share learnings from North Harbour Hockey's sustainable development programme and build networks to take climate action and regenerate nature. It's a privilege to work collaboratively with national bodies to generate positive change.

-        Sheryl and Sam have begun to build a ‘who we are’ section on the website offering members insight into some of our people. Richard Nahi, Kaumatua, bio and photo is available for you to read now. Richard’s lifelong and extensive investment and loyalty to communities he serves and leads is evident. We are blessed to enjoy his leadership and thankful indeed to work alongside him, he is extraordinary. And our one in a million. Thanks to our comms team who continue to put hours of voluntary work into all our communications.

-        With Ben Zhang, Permaculture specialist’s seed library model, we have registered with plant pass to ensure we do what is expected to manage biosecurity as we host a library for the community to share food or native seeds. Te Hōnonga a Iwi is unable to plant seeds that are not eco sourced by us in our native corridor.

-        Treasurer Jody Gilfilan has undertaken a commitment to support Evan Chen from Massey University accounting students in Sem 1 2026 as they learn to apply their accounting knowledge and support NFPs to report their financial statements.

-        New and returning businesses BDO, PWC, Mayne Wetherell, KPMG, Avient have all reached out to organise time to come make a positive difference. We could not achieve the scale we have without their ongoing support, time and expertise, Thank you all.

-        We have reached out to Fundsorter to ascertain whether they could help us identify a sustainable funding stream within the business sector. We will inform you of that outcome.

-        We have connected with Tom Slade, Sustainability Goodlands, to identify the contact for the NZ Post building to identify if we can enter a shared water model that will enable us to defend our ngahere and nearby building from climate-era fire threats using their mega roofline for water conservation and collection.

-        We thank Fareh and Alex for their news stories this month and celebrate our new journalist Lucy Henshaw, who is a science and comms student at University of Auckland. Lucy will support Sheryl as she transitions to the Chair role. We know how fortunate we are to have this strength within the comms team.

-        Our chicken and bee LOA with AC has expired and we have requested a three-year  extension to the LOA to enable us to welcome Mr Jack Chan and his beehive to the restoration and extend the stay of the chickens doing remarkable work. Auckland Council works hard to support us to meet regulations and practice safely, innovate and trial proof of concept. Alex Stansfield has the patience of a saint responding quickly to our changing needs.

-        Uru Whakaaro continues to develop the restoration plan.

-        Harry Silver, consummate business manager at Dingle Foundation, is looking to organise the second corporate working bee at the site later this year. Dingle has invested truckloads into Te Hōnonga a Iwi, connecting so many businesses to take climate action for youth, they should feel proud of their important place with us. 

-        We had a special moment this week with past Auckland Council Park Ranger Dan Marrow and current ranger Theo Jaycox joining us for a quiet birthday celebration in the rain with lemon cake. It felt amazing seeing Dan’s smile at the changes he could see since the project started. Huge kudos to these professionals for their leadership, support, resourcing and hard work to enable anyone to regenerate the land, including volunteers at Te Hōnonga a Iwi.

-        New committee member Stanley Friedlick has already connected us with education opportunities to learn about regeneration of the environment. Academic leaders have and continue to play a pivotal and unparalleled role in our growth and development. Thank you, Stanley for your time and effort.

-        We have shifted another three trailer loads of organic coir from Grow my Greens this month, stacking up goodness to protect new seedlings over summer and grow soil health. We arrived to pick up another load yesterday and found a MASSIVE bag of radish seeds for us to use in the glasshouse and distribute to students to grow their own microgreens. Absolutely amazing effort on Cat’s part, thank you.

-        We are hosting the local parks council team soon to show them the restoration and get to know other leaders within the Council.

-        A new student volunteer from Rangitoto College found it difficult to find us and offered constructive feedback that we could do better with supplying a map of where to park if required, bus stops, accessing the mara kai and the restoration. We agree with him and are acting on that now.

-        The new signage warning people who are accessing the trapline along Alexander Stream have been designed and manufactured through Theo, Park Ranger. This is a quick turnaround that enables us to promote the trapline as a safe space to work in given the lewd behaviour challenges we faced recently. We are setting up surveillance cameras and the signs in September.

-        The Auckland Council surveying team are also coming to the site to ensure the last of our new natives go into the ground in time for them to prepare for the summer weather. Thank you all.

We look forward to updating you in Spring! Thank you all for the collective difference you make.