Trust's focus on careers for young Maori

Tamihana Nuku during Te Awahohonu Trust's open day at Tarawera station as a finalist in the 2013 Ahuwhenua Trophy Maori Excellence in Sheep and Beef farming, prior to winning the trophy. Photo / John Cowpland, Alphapix

It's almost two years since Tarawera Station won the Ahuwhenua Trophy for Maori Excellence in sheep and beef farming.

But for Tamihana Nuku, who chairs station proprietors Te Awahohonu Forest Trust, the winning is forever. It stretches far wider than the 2865ha effective, beside the upper Mohaka River and at present perhaps most noticeable to the passing masses for the hectares of forestry being felled and harvested alongside State Highway 5, about 60km northwest of Napier.

"We are already seeing more Mori entities lifting their performance due to attending finalists' field days and awards dinners and being inspired to enter in the future with a hope of eventually taking away the Ahuwhenua Award for their owners."

The silver-maned 75-year-old has his and his trust's eyes firmly focused on achieving the best possible outcome for the Hineuru and Kahungunu iwi beneficiaries, but inseparable is the development of young Maori and their career potential, especially if the result is a pool of people equipped to run and staff the Tarawera of the future and the trust's other land, it's own form of succession-farming.

But it's a long road, from the start of a new era when Tarawera Station was formed in 1965. Back then the people began a process to regain control of a vast block which had, for more than a century been tied-up in the vagaries of Crown land purchases and confiscations of the early to mid-1800s.

While the trust was formed in 1970, it was not until 1987 that it took control of the property, inheriting a debt of over half-a-million dollars. The financial trend was reversed in just four years and the trust was on its way to becoming a major land-holding entity, now with more than 21,000ha in Hawke's Bay, including the purchase of Gwavas Station in Central Hawke's Bay.

Chairman for about 20 years - from Omahu, living in Hastings, and to some people a more familiar figure racing and training with waka ama on Pandora Pond in Napier - Mr Nuku said: "It's been an amazing journey, and it hasn't stopped either.

"We are trying to establish more support for young people.

"But it's down the road we are looking at getting them on to the property. We have been looking after the resources, we had to attract the best possible people to work with the process."

Getting things right was how he first became involved at the governance level - working on a Lands and Survey block, not liking what he could see going on "on the other side of the river" and forming links with founding trust chairman Bob Cottrell Snr.

Mr Nuku had worked as a shepherd-general in the Gisborne area, on a farm "up the Taihape road" and for the Absolums on the Simmental breeding operation at Rissington, and at a glance could tell the owners of Tarawera were not getting the best they could.

"We had a grandstand view [of Tarawera]," he said. "We saw some unusual things happening there."

Mr Cottrell encouraged him to join the trust, and ultimately succeed him in the chair.

The station and trust were Ahuwhenua Trophy finalists in 2004, but no award was made because of the impact of adverse weather on other contenders.

Managed by Carl Read-Jones, the station won the Hawke's Bay Farmer of the Year Award in 2009, but what is regarded as the ultimate success came in 2013, when Mr Nuku accepted the trophy on behalf of the station and the trust at a dinner attended by about 800 people in the Pettigrew Green Arena in Taradale.

Many of the shareholders, young and old, were there, and many will next month take part in regular tours of the property staged to keep them in touch with the land and the enterprise.

"They're very critical," Mr Nuku said. "We are very lucky we've got the right parties to say the right things, but you can't pull the wool over their eyes."