Tracey Sanday from the Makaurau Marae Nursery was pleased to hear she'd been named as one of the Twelve Days of Christmas grant recipients for 2024. Photo / Greg Bowker
Tracey Sanday from the Makaurau Marae Nursery was pleased to hear she'd been named as one of the Twelve Days of Christmas grant recipients for 2024. Photo / Greg Bowker
The Herald is profiling 12 charities awarded $10,000 each from Auckland Airport’s Twelve Days of Christmas community giving tradition. Each grant is thanks to generous travellers who placed unwanted currency into money boxes dotted around the terminals in 2024.
An iwi-led native plant nursery in Ihumātao, South Auckland, is reaching back to Māori ancestral models to grow native plants that are indigenous to the area.
Makaurau Marae Nursery eco-sources seed of local wild harakeke (flax), mānuka, kānuka, tī kōuka (cabbage tree), karamu and kōwhai, to name a few, within the Manukau ecological district to propagate and grow as organically as possible to enhance biodiversity, land and water quality within the area.
Based at Makaurau Marae, the nursery provides native plants from our ecological district to sustain communities and enhance biodiversity, land, and water quality.
“We view plants and trees as having whakapapa, or genealogies, linking us to the land, ancestors, and the wider environment,” says nursery manager Tracey Sanday.
“Our plants are eco-sourced from vegetation occurring naturally within our area and grown as organically as possible in the nursery.”
Tracey Sanday, from the Makaurau Marae Nursery, plans on using the funds to help become a certified training hub to teach sustainable horticulture and waste management through Māori ancestral models and provide those services far and wide. Photo / Greg Bowker
Traditional knowledge and practices also inform the timing of seed collection to ensure they are harvested sustainably, taking account of phases of the moon, soil conditions, and seasons to ensure seedling propagation is in tune with natural cycles.
This is knowledge Sanday is keen to share more widely in the community and beyond, with a vision to see the nursery, based at the Makaurau Marae, become a certified training hub to teach sustainable horticulture and waste management through Māori ancestral models.
“I’ve always had a vision the nursery would be a space to create employment as well as rejuvenate our whenua with rākau [trees] that used to exist here in and around our marae and the surrounding whenua. That’s aligned with our marae’s guiding principles – to strengthen our people through restoring the mauri of land, biodiversity, people, and water – together,” Sanday says.
“I’m not going to be here forever. We need to upskill our whānau, tamariki [children], as a means of succession as they are our next kaitiaki [custodians] who can take our nursery to the next level to support the biodiversity of the area.”
Next year, the nursery will be able to accelerate the journey to upskill thanks to a $10,000 grant from Auckland Airport’s Twelve Days of Christmas community giving programme.
Elizabeth Adams from the Makaurau Marae Nursery with some of the plants they're working with. Photo / Greg Bowker
The grant is funded from the globe money boxes dotted around the airport, where travellers place spare foreign currency when they are passing through.
As a first step, the money will help the nursery’s small team of three progress their horticulture training education to gain the highest level they can achieve and keep upskilling to protect the environment.
“Over the next decade, we want to employ and train at least 20 fulltime people to work within the nursery operations so we can cater to large-scale landscaping operations and grow our capabilities such as site preparations, planting, predator and weed control and waste management,” Sanday says.
“Our plants are already in demand, and while we can supply up to 30,000 plants with our small team, at our current size we are unable to fulfil all the orders we receive for large-scale, commercial projects.”
Auckland Airport chief corporate services officer Melanie Dooney says the airport is pleased to support the nursery’s vision to expand and create employment opportunities.
“Located just five minutes from the airport, Makaurau Marae Nursery is one of our closest neighbours on the Manukau Harbour and this is a way we can support Sanday and her team’s commitment to enhance local biodiversity.”
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