October 2025 project update

It is important we highlight the current biosecurity risk with the recent local detection of a queen yellow legged hornet discovered in Glenfield, North Shore. Please look out for their distinctive yellow legs and fan-shaped nest and report to MPI immediately online. You can also download a fact sheet.

October has been a time to draw breath, and switch to planning for 2026 and plant maintenance on site.

The following actions and outputs were achieved across the month:

-        Our quarterly KPI (July-Sept) snapshot showed 4,400 plants planted by 840 volunteers, in 1201 hours with 330 plants sourced from local seed whakapapa. 312 hours were spent on nursery work by 69 people. Pest animal leaders spent 78 hours trapping and monitoring and one bird count was completed. Just 20 hours was spent weeding in that quarter however, we diverted 36m3 biomass from going to fill. 17 hours was spent preparing for events, with an additional 32 voluntary hours preparing for hosting the event and 42 people came to a one-off event. We spent 12 hours advocating for the environment in the form of submissions or policy construction and nine hours supporting the regional ecology network to advocate for Te Taiao. 220 hours was spent on organising for the delivery of Te Hōnonga a Iwi outcomes. We asked for 12 hours of time from Mana Whenua to ensure we are aligned with Māori expectations and values. We paid for 374 hours of coordination and activation work to achieve results. We had 797 website news story visits, and have 175 Facebook followers, with 14 308 views and 436 followers and 156 000 views. 220 people received our newsletter. We tested water quality across three sites 3 times. 5 people have first aid qualifications, 3 are police vetted. 34 hours was spent undertaking professional development of training.

-        We continue to receive truckloads of mulch from local landscaper A1 tree services, enabling us to build soil across the chicken area that is situated on concrete.

-        We collected two more loads of coir matting to break down across the month, and mix with cover crops and compost to place around newly planted trees.

-        We secured insurance for assets and for public liability.

-        The community has really enjoyed the growth in the food garden and started to harvest the produce. We will have a stall operating next year and clear guidance on how to use the māra kai.

-        Mountains to Sea leaders came to do an afternoon’s mahi on site. It was special to be able to host the people who helped us start and continue to invest time and resources into us. Thank you all for coming and all you do to support the health of catchments across the motu.

-        The youth leaders for animal pest management and water quality continue to undertake monitoring and recording duties across the month. These unsung heroes work so hard to suppress invasive animals and ensure we have accurate data to understand our impact and how we can improve. Thanks teams, you are amazing.

-        Our water quality leaders, Marina and Eva, from Kristin, have been serving through volunteering at Te Hōnonga a Iwi since inception. We thank them both, their sister and family for their ongoing support and care of the environment. Eva and Marina have kindly organised an assembly presentation to try to secure their replacements ahead of their leaving Tamaki Makaurau to study next year. An insightful piece of planning that is really appreciated by us. They have kindly connected us with the next prefect team too to support ongoing partnerships with Kristin School prefects. Action to ensure succession planning is crucial to our ability to maintain long-term partnerships. We are thankful and impressed by the foresight of our youth volunteers.

-        Raw sewage overflow from a drain beside Alexander Stream was flowing heavily on 23 October. This was reported immediately to Watercare and Auckland Council.

-        The strategic committee met and will produce a short update of strategic actions after each meeting. We will be meeting every two months across the year. Huge thanks to this group.

-        Tabitha Becroft, Community Ranger, came to spend the morning with us to share her knowledge and support our learning about regenerating the environment with particular emphasis on animal and plant pest management on our site that has 40 invasive plant pests.

-        We met with Olivia, a youth mentor, at Rangitoto College this month. Olivia talked about the ability to actively promote mental health in rangatahi through working in nature and enhancing physical health and wellbeing, generating a greater sense of belonging and inclusion, keeping the balance and flexibility to offer service as a top priority to meet the changing needs of youth volunteers. Olivia’s insights are accurately reflected in health research outcomes and enable us to be mindful of the importance of the opportunities youth choose to take to work in the natural world and the importance of maximising the opportunity to promote health and wellbeing in children and youth.

-        One of our Youth Leader’s Business Activation, Liam, Rangitoto College, has reached out to Go Media to request support to advertise Te Hōnonga a Iwi on the main billboard outside Albany Stadium.

-        Mariko, another outstanding Business Activator from Kristin School, secured two months free chicken food from Farmlands, Helensville! An incredible outcome from both Activators and a credit to their ability to communicate with businesses, and share the Te Hono story to encourage change and new business investors. Thank you both for your continued support. These two activators are on the cusp of their final exams and we all wish them, and all our young people well for this process.

-        Our Chairperson Sheryl Blythen, from Be Media, Ashley Han, Communications and Design and Chinese translator together with Sam Weston, Graphic Designer have crafted our first Christmas Giving Campaign for individuals and businesses to support. The collateral has been translated into Mandarin by Ashly and the campaign is ready to launch in the next week or so. Untold thanks to this special group of volunteers who create fun and vibrant content for us to become more sustainable.

-        We have secured support from both the Hockey Trust and Association to install pergolas to protect the glasshouse, working bee station and water tanks.  We are working through changing the name of the Community Garden LOA from NHHA to Te Hōnonga a Iwi so we can take on sole responsibility for LOA compliance as we have transitioned to the new entity. We thank Harbour Hockey for their continued support, on so many levels and for enabling ongoing socio-ecological action to mitigate and adapt to climate change within our community.

-        Jody Gilfillan, Te Hōnonga a Iwi Financial Officer has been working hard to secure our new back account to ensure we are up and running independently! It is an exciting time. Thanks for carving out space in your already overloaded schedule for making this happen!

-        We completed the Auckland Council funding agreement this month for working bee coordinator and activator wages until the end of June 2026. We will be looking to secure a new contractor to help us scale across this time.  We remain blessed to have Elouise and Daniel remain with us in 2026 and look forward to what the next year will bring in terms of greening the BID at the same time as the Rosedale Park corridor.

-        We have developed a draft statement of intent for promoting a safe learning environment for children and young people and drafted policies that support that commitment including the child and youth protection, complaints and whistleblower policies. These will be reviewed by the strategy team and posted on our website for reference. All leaders, contractors, employees and volunteers need to commit to ensuring child and youth safety when they invest in nature with us.

-        We spent time with a new journalist, Lucy Henshaw, who is studying communications and science at Auckland University. Lucy is committed to supporting the team of journalists led by Sheryl Blythen to showcase our actions and the difference stakeholders make within the restoration. She is using her growing expertise to help us to improve our social media communications to enable greater reach and scale. Thank you so much for your time, energy and knowledge Lucy, it’s great to have you as part of the communications team.

-        Alex from Kristin School continues to produce articles each month that are brilliant. Thank you, Alex, for the positive difference you are making within the project.

-        Gurit, foundation Te Hōnonga a Iwi members, celebrated their first year of owning their own trapline this month. Elyse had organised piwakawaka badges and cake to celebrate with the team in honour of their friendly feathered friend, Flick, who routinely joins them on their trapping route in Burnside Reserve. Flick is a delight, please take a look out for him if you get the chance to explore Burnside! Huge thanks to Gurit, Quniovic, Forbes and new business Ironhawk for your amazing leadership with trapping across the Albany Basin as we grow canopy cover locally!

-        Aaron, Ironhawk and Michelle, Pumpkins in Trees are both committed to developing community and regenerating the local environment. This local business whānau are nailing promoting positive change in the neighbourhood with the establishment of a new trapline along William Pickering stormwater corridor with an extension through to Fernhill Escarpment! It is SO exciting to have the chance to protect Fernhill more and improving the rākau growing along the water catchment will help fresh water quality as it flows into nearly Lucas Creek. It's important to remember Banded Rail and Inunga are present in Lucas Creek and all we can do now to manage pest animals is so important for the endemic species survival and biodiversity to flourish in the Albany Basin. Untold thanks to you both for your investment in Te Hōnonga a Iwi and to Michelle for her amazing images she captures with her photography expertise. It helps to bring nature within our environment to life.

-        We have continued to work at installing the māra kai irrigation to all aspects of the community food garden with Matt from Untangled Landscapes teaching us how to install so we can adapt within the glasshouse and shadehouse as we need to. Thanks Matt! All the vertical and raised beds and tables, the espalier fruit trees and syntropic food forest are being watered now. Foundation North, Bupa International Fund, NZ Landcare, Sky City Foundation and Auckland Council have all contributed cash injections to enable us to complete the māra kai. We look forward to installing a pergola over the glasshouse and working station and the water tanks to protect from the weather and wayward hockey balls once we apply for council approval. We have $10,000 for the working station pergola from Bupa ready to invest by August 2026.

-        We have completed an application for the Auckland Council Waste Minimisation Grant to enable us to collect food scraps from local businesses in the māra kai and to set up new biomass composting capacity within the Business Development area. The application is for $50k to enable employment of a .25 FTE to leverage new business activation to divert waste biomass to fleets of Johnson-Su biorectors or food scraps only to seven new vermicompostors. This will enable us to start building compost out of the local waste stream to increase greening the Albany Basin commercial sector. Increasing plant and pest animal management, harvesting rainfall, making compost out of organic waste, regenerating the soil, one street at a time, will enable us to scale decarbonising, sequestering more carbon, cooling the local BID and green corridors, offering shade, a regenerated wildlife habitat, increased animal and human food security, flood and fire management, reduction of the urban heat island effect, increased fresh and marine water quality and increased business, residential and future generational resilience within the climate crisis era. We will inform you of the outcome post December 2025.

-        We were delighted to welcome the Auckland Council Environmental Team to the site this month. We enjoy learning from members of this team and the support they have consistently offered us to begin the regeneration project. It took courage to facilitate non ecological volunteers, led by Ngāti Whātua vision, to start making positive changes to local business impact on nature and the ecosystems we depend upon. The chance to start building canopy cover in the BID at the same time we are regenerating the Rosedale Park green corridor, is exciting and could not begin without the knowledge and expertise within council. Thank you all for your leadership and inspiration to give it a go. If small local businesses, with little to no prior knowledge can work with iwi mana whenua, council, local schools and NGO, then it is possible for anyone to take climate action to support a healthier environment and future. Special thanks and mihi to Dan, Theo and Anna Baine for their work with us since inception.

-        We ran our first stakeholders tour of the restoration and māra kai this month. It was wonderful to show people who have invested in the project how things have changed and what difference is being made. We will be repeating these tours annually from now on.

-        We visited the most incredible group of people at Restoring Takarunga Hauraki this month and could have moved in there! The mahi and the systems and culture that the team led by Lance and Zane, and many others, is unparalleled and inspirational. Thank you for carving out time and sharing a cuppa and some of your magic with us. We came away with new energy and ideas to improve our model and actions!

-        We celebrated two amazing volunteers winning awards this month. Sam Weston, Graphic Designer winning the NHHA Te Hōnonga a Iwi award and Matthew Wardle winning the NHHA Sustainability award for the immense, ongoing contribution they have made to regenerating nature and connecting people locally. Congratulations to you both and thank you for the pivotal roles you play within the restoration.

-        Service leader and very special science teacher, Emily Kennedy from Rangitoto College, visited us to see the transformation Rangitoto students have achieved in the māra kai. Working in close partnership with teachers helps us to understand student needs and expectations and use a strengths-based model to offer students meaningful opportunities to invest in growing nature and climate action. Students want and expect society to become more sustainable and less impactful of the planet's ecosystems. They are our biggest investors in the project, and are leading from the front. The transformation of the māra kai from flat grass to a fully functioning food garden and forest that uses waste organics to produce quality fruit and vegetables is something we hope the students are proud of. Few people make this level of positive impact from design inception to operationalising the food garden, Rangitoto College students have led each development step. The garden is a credit to all of them. Thank you all for what you have achieved for local people and the planet.

-        We met with CEO, BNH, Kevin O’Leary this month to request support for a fundraising campaign and consideration of greater support work towards improving trapping, plant pest management, native or food forest canopy cover, catchment fresh and marine water quality and decarbonising with diverting much more local organic waste to increase soil health locally. Kevin is always highly supportive of our requests to disseminate information to the commercial sector and interested in increasing future business resilience within the BID. Huge thanks to BNH for being an important part of this journey to increase environmental health and local supply/B2B resilience.

-        We thoroughly enjoyed welcoming back Sophie Haine, Te Hōnonga a Iwi Alumni with her suite of amazing Brownies who came to undertake plant maintenance with us this month! We loved seeing you Sophie and celebrated knowing the other leaders who offer so much community service in their own right. We look forward to welcoming you back as often as you can!

-        We met with Janet Cole and Damian Young from Zelandia Consulting for the most inspirational reviews of the water catchment. It's rare you get the chance to meet two titans in local environmental regeneration. Damian has agreed to join our strategic think tank group to support identifying how to prioritise where to start taking action within the BID to make the greatest water quality gains. His lifetime of expertise as an environmental engineer matched with our interest in nature-based solutions is a welcome partnership. Zealandia have also kindly committed to installing underwater filming capability to enable us to bring what is happening within the Alexander Awa to life for our volunteers and community. Damian has made his research outputs on waterways and restorations fully accessible and it's worth taking time to examine Zealandia’s work within their knowledge hub. Damian’s ability to retrieve historical data on the Alexander Stream is also very exciting and we are grateful to be able to welcome Zealandia as a restoration partner!

-        We enjoyed celebrating both Rachael and Louis’ two-year anniversary as UWEN managers. These two legends continue to lead from the front, and develop the strong UWEN culture that makes innovation, change, and delivering genuinely strong ecological and community outcomes a joy and a process so many of us look forward to being a part of. Only one person has left UWEN in the last three years, and that's because he moved to Christchurch! UWEN’s notable retention rate speaks volumes about their leaders and the people who work in their rohe to generate positive change. It's neat to be in a network that has a lot to celebrate! Everyone is always welcome!

-        We were pleased to get the chance to support Nicholas Mayne, Arocha, in Exeter Reserve this month. Nick’s always helping us so its cool to have time with him and Serko who are regular supporters in the rohe! Nick has been working to clear pest plants in Exeter ahead of their migration downstream to us! In truth, he's still helping us to help ourselves! We note that as unassuming as he is, he generates some of the most social media support we get when we profile his mahi! Thanks for all you do Nick.

-        We worked with Wilson students twice this month, undertaking botanical artwork on a rainy day in the classroom and mixing and biffing cover crop seed bombs when the weather let us out and about at the restoration. The Wilson students achieve all the work people who do not need to use a wheelchair or manage balance challenges achieve. We enjoy this student group’s leadership, joy, hard graft, ideas, skills, knowledge and insights and we benefit from their talents each visit. Thank you all for continuing to come each fortnight to generate climate actions across the park and māra kai!

-        We spoke about our sustainability model at a Forest and Bird meeting this month and lucked into listening to a botanist from the Botanic Gardens talk about their work, vision and the differences they are making conserving rare flora and contributing towards international seed libraries. Fascinating learning and a reminder that the Botanic Gardens are a local taonga. In time, it might be possible to visit the new garden estate in Greenhithe to have something closer to home to visit for people based in the North.

-        We are thrilled to be partnering with Kaipatiki Project again to run a Bike Pop Up event on Sat, 1 Nov from 9:30am - 12 pm, weather dependent, in Rosedale Park, next to the Hockey Turf 5.  Come learn or practice riding a free bike in the park and plant some seedlings for Te Hononga a Iwi while you are there!

-        We wanted to extend an invitation to our volunteers to attend UWEN’s volunteer Celebration Event on Sunday 9 November at 5 30 pm, Meadowood Community Center, 55 Meadowood Drive, Unsworth Heights. Please rsvp to Rachael on rachael@uwen.org.nz.

-        We attended a couple of super webinars this month and share the two links with you for your interest. The Wellbeing Economy Alliance has released a discussion document on promoting future generations health and prosperity for those interested in recognising the health of the planet will play a pivotal role in the health of future generations and wildlife. The Helen Clark Foundation Webinar on how to deliver on the recent UN Declaration on Future Generations featured an outstanding international guest speaker, Welshman Jack Ellis, co-lead and founder of the Impact Coalition for Future Gnerations. speaks in the first half of the webinar and isn't shy about inspiring listeners to take action now for generations to come, a message that resonates well with ecological action and has always been a crucial part of iwi kaupapa and tikanga.

-        We met with Sarah Wakeford and Pascarn Dickinson, Huber Social, to discuss how we could begin to measure youth volunteer and volunteer wellbeing in relation to their experience at Te Hōnonga a Iwi. Pascarn is an outstanding social geographer, recommended to us by Think Tank Strategy team member Cadey Korson. Pascarn’s expertise in devising opportunities to measure wellbeing is exciting and he has kindly offered us examples of surveys, global research for health and wellbeing outcomes for volunteers in working in the natural world and ideas for how we can best deliver longitudinal data that will help us, and perhaps others, to improve our services and offerings. This is a particularly important outcome for us to measure as we aim to increase individual, community, environmental and small business health and resilience outcomes within the project. Real thanks Pascarn and Cadey for helping us to begin to research how we will measure this outcome.

-        Elouise devised a new student registration form for the Pop Up Bike Day that improves the way we manage students at the restoration to ensure we promote their safety.

-        We welcomed a new water quality tester and local resident, Peytyn, to the team this month. Peytyn has been looking for opportunities to volunteer in the region and wanted to support the development of ecological health. We are hoping Peytyn will begin testing in Lucas Creek to support data collection that we are getting further upstream.

-        We have the Growing Point Qualitative Soil Microscopy workshop this month with 12 Te Hono/RH and Grow Forrest Hill people to learn how to measure soil health. We are grateful to have Lotteries funding secured by UWEN, that has enabled these working bees to occur this year.

-        Nicky attended an outdoor first aid certificate this month to ensure compliance with leading working bees.

-        We attended an inaugural UWEN meeting focussed on developing regional readiness for Rewilding for Resilience where we aim to work with key local stakeholders across several sectors to build capacity to green managed retreat spaces and improve estuarine and marine water quality long term.

-        We have requested consideration to attend a Planetary Accounting course enabling us to measure our impact on the planet's finite systems.

-        We met with an entrepreneur who is developing a ride share app called Carpoolin. Given most of our volunteers are youth this mode of promoting travelling more lightly isn't appropriate for Te Hōnoga a Iwi volunteers. However, it is useful to understand market opportunities to decarbonise through transport choices, and we look forward to hosting the Bike Pop up.

-        We welcomed restoration partner Viridis to the site this month to orient the ecologists to the sites and discuss the installation of the digital bird count monitor they have kindly lent us. It is so positive to work with ecological experts to improve what we do.

-        We attended a microbes in the city webinar to continue to increase our understanding of the role the microbial world has in developing soil health and sinking more carbon than we produce.

-        New business, Adis, came to work with us for five hours this month on pest plant clearance. We thank them for their time and positive energy and look forward to welcoming them back soon!

-        Te Hōnonga a Iwi strategy team will share the top actions they decide to take to progress the restoration after each meeting. You can refer to them online and the results will be posted on SM channels so stakeholders can easily access/view our strategic mahi.

-        We enjoyed meeting new Sustainable Schools lead, Chris de La Mare and orienting our AC lead, Sinead Brimacombe to the restoration this month. We have scheduled a sustainable teachers zone day tour in the new year and look forward to talking with them about their vision for a more sustainable future and how we can help support that.

-        We have reached out to meet a Rosterfly representative to understand whether their volunteer management programme might suit our needs. We will keep you posted on the outcome of that conversation.

-        Finally, we are thrilled to be hosting Sam the Trapman’s documentary ‘Think like a Forest’ with partners Kristin School and UWEN. We have secured permission to show the documentary and we will confirm dates with you closer to the time.

Thank you to you all for your continued efforts and sharing your expertise and energy to create a legacy for the future.