Talking Point: Planting for the Future

Hinewai Ormsby planting for the future.

These past few weeks across Aotearoa and here in Hawke's Bay we have collectively celebrated Te Tau Hou - the Māori New Year as we sighted the star clusters of Matariki in our sky.

The recent public holiday provided the opportunity to push pause on our busy lives to attend events and take time together with whānau, friends and loved ones.

We have seen incredible turnouts of people at our numerous local events, and my children especially were overawed at the Ātea a Rangi Education Trust and Ngāti Kahungunu's Marama sound and light trail show event at the Hawke's Bay Waitangi Regional Park.

What a way to kick off our first official Matariki public holiday and celebrations.

During the time of sighting the Matariki cluster and many other tohu whetū (stars) traditionally, it was a time of abundance where the previous summer's harvests were enjoyed and plans were made to ensure the continuity of kai for the next year ahead.

These practices were interconnected and dependent on the ability to work in harmony with our natural environment.

We face huge challenges from a warming planet which is a product of our collective carbon emissions that are currently creating significant challenges seen and felt across our communities including our ability to grow and produce food, which in turn creates jobs, and livelihoods for people and communities.

The future harvests of tomorrow in the decades and centuries to come will be entirely dependent on the collective efforts of us locally, regionally, nationally, and globally today. We need to ensure we continue to create and maintain an environment that sustains us as people.

So that is why I want Matariki to be that time each year whereby we pause to take scope collectively about our environment and what we can do before the stars reappear in the year to come to ensure our world remains in a state that will guarantee Matariki will always be a time of celebration.

Getting outdoors at the time of Matariki, whether it be backyard bird counting, trapping possums, or planting the future native forests and wetlands of tomorrow, is something that each one of us must dedicate energy towards at this time of year.

Here in the Hawke's Bay your councils in partnership with tangata whenua are making huge strides on the ground in turning talk into action.

The Ahuriri Regional Park which will see the formation of massive carbon sinks in the form of a massive natural wetland is well under way in terms of planning, with the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, Napier City Council and Mana Ahuriri Trust wasting no time in getting this multi year project under way.

The benefits of improved water quality, increased biodiversity including native fish and bird numbers, as well as an ecological gem for us as people to enjoy are all positives that will form out of it.

My whānau and I have been growing 2500 native trees down the side of our house the past year, and so this Matariki we'll be heading to the Cross-Country Drain in Napier and to our friend Sarah McCardle's wetland adjacent to the Taipō Stream that feeds the Ahuriri Estuary to cloak the land in riparian forests.

In the decades to come these trees will suck thousands of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and will play a very small but important role in ensuring our environment is in a suitable state to sustain the harvests of tomorrow.

So, in the next month I ask that you come down and join me and our community to do your bit this Matariki and play a small part in ensuring the Matariki harvests of tomorrow continue to be celebrated.

■ The Details
What: Planting days
When: Sunday, July 17, starts 9am
Where: Cross Country Drain, corner Ulyatt Rd and Harold Holt Ave, Pirimai, Napier
When: Sunday, July 31, starts 10am
Where: Taipo Stream, 82 Fryer Rd, Poraiti, Napier