Third birthday major milestone for restoration

Last month Te Hōnonga a Iwi celebrated its third birthday, three years after we first broke ground and cleared a 2000-square-metre area to kick off our native bush restoration project in Rosedale Park.

Project co-ordinator Nicky Shave says this is an important milestone. “We gave it go, and we’ve come so far.

“We learned how to plant, sow 6000m² of cover crops, make 24 tonnes of bioorganic compost and drive down our footprint.

“We are healthier and so is our land, freshwater and air. We have much greater biodiversity and we have people who feel they belong.”

Nicky says the project has strengthened local businesses, improving their capacity to attract and retain customers and boosting business-to-business connections.

“We are mitigating and adapting to climate change, and we can see that nature-based solutions offer opportunities and hope for the future.”

Looking ahead, she says the team is excited about what’s to come. “We have a special team of exceptionally talented, hard-working and committed people with diverse skills to take us forward to the next phase in our journey. Imagine if you will, Albany as a thriving ecosystem.”

Here are just a few of the highlights of the past three years and some of the people that have made our project possible:

·       We made a start in 2022, after a year of planning, with a clear vision of increasing environmental, individual, community and local business health and resilience with just $500 in our pocket and little idea about ecology. We had guidance from our Kaumatua and from our park rangers Dan Marrow and, more latterly, Theo Jaycox, who supported, advised and funded initial land clearance, a chicken coop, tools, shed, shadehouse, stakes, holes and a holistic regeneration plan.

·       Matt Cummings and Svea Berling from Untangled Landscapes invested in bioorganic compost and cover crop seed, helped us get started and taught us regenerative techniques.

·       Briar Broad and her colleagues from Mountains to Sea have invested heavily into teaching us freshwater quality monitoring and reporting, and Louis Foot and Rachael Pales from UWEN help in any way they can to enable success.

·       Nicholas Mayne, Annette Mitchell, Jan Dipose, Richard Chalmers, Carol Tilman, Rhiannon Ledra, Amy Sandler, Nicola Robertson and Tim Johnson have been by our side, advising and guiding as we progressed.

·       We had help from 75 organisations, including experts within iwi, regenerative agriculture, Auckland Council, the Upper Waitemāta Ecology Network, other restorations, Whitebait Connection, Massey University and committed local schools and businesses who cared and wanted to support positive climate action.

·       More than 4,000 volunteers have worked on the project, giving us time, resources, intellectual property, and natural, manufactured or financial capital that amounts to over $550k value created.

·       We have worked with nine schools, two universities and two early childhood education centres.

·       We have received 10,000 natives, free of charge from Paremoremo Prison Nursery, Trees That Count, BUPA Foundation and NZ Landcare Trust.

·       We have learned to grow our own natives with the development of a seed whakapapa model, generated quality data on the state of our ecosystem, and designed, and built a community mara kai to convert waste biomass to high quality food for the community.

·       We've supported more than 50 youth to become autonomous leaders within a myriad of roles that create immense value within the restoration. 

·       Our education partners are unsung heroes, enabling thousands of young people to connect, serve, learn, develop. Five of our young people have gained employment within the local district.

·       We have chickens who work harder than anyone to clear pest plants and increase soil health.

·       We have welcomed three amazing working bee coordinators: Elouise Schukerbrown, Daniel Tiong and Ben Zhang.

·       We have won local, regional, and national awards that help validate the use of regenerative agriculture and sustainability principles underpinned by a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Nicky says that for the restoration, the future is bright.

“Soon we will have our first beehives, syntropic food garden, glasshouse, water supply, a year-long documentary on our social value chain, a longitudinal study on social change in the climate crisis era, colourful signs that help develop a sense of belonging, pop up recycled bikes, beetle hotels, and, if I had my way, a fish doorbell.”

Nicky would also love to have hologram and digital bird art installations that help people transition from an urban space to a natural one as they enter the restoration and are reminded about why we do this work.

“And the real birds will return and inspire us to become the first climate positive restoration in New Zealand.”