Maori land brings work opportunity

By ANGELA GREGORY

Maori communities in the upper Waikato are returning to the land to develop pasture, scrub and bush and harvest natural extracts, oils and medicines.

The "bio-prospecting" is expected to see hapu turn hundreds of hectares of under-used land into productive units and create badly needed jobs.

Te Puaha O Waikato Trust has already gained help from private developers to steer and support it through the long-term project, which Maori at a hui in Port Waikato approved at the weekend.

Project co-ordinator Wanda Kiel-Rapana said the trust represented marae along the Waikato River from Tuakau to Port Waikato, and some towards Raglan.

Mrs Kiel-Rapana said the traditional land development would be run as a co-operative, with good leadership already in place.

With high local unemployment she was confident of finding the necessary workers.

"I am absolutely excited," she said. "I have worked with our people for a number of years and I believe they are ready for it."

Mrs Kiel-Rapana was pleased the project protected the environment. "People have had a habit of coming in and not replacing the resources they used."

While biotech company Natural Link would help the trust to get the project started, it was important that hapu owned the project and eventually ran it themselves, she said.

Doug Mende, managing director of Natural Link, said the company had extensive experience in extracting natural properties from native plants.

Special qualities of New Zealand native plants had a commercial value, which provided the opportunity for iwi to develop economically in a way that fitted their culture, he said.

Mr Mende's company would help the trust establish indigenous forest management for oils and natural chemical products and develop markets.

A sustainable land use policy would include organic practices, the establishment of nursery crops for planting and sale, and using the area's available assets.

Mr Mende said bio-prospecting native plants and weeds had a good potential market value, with local and overseas demand for natural products.

The project would provide economic returns from the diversification and sustainable management of lands, water and bush resources.

Mr Mende said Te Puaha land included the Waikato River's islands and floodplain, a belt of deep, fertile alluvial soils between the river and the hill country, and extensive areas of mature and regenerating manuka and native bush remnants.

It also included rolling and steep pastures, sand dunes and swamp lands.

"Not too long ago these lands sustained thousands of people, and could easily support thousands people considering the land and area type," he said.

"Traditionally the river and the coast provided fish, the bush supplied medicines and timber, the people worked extensive gardens on the deep soils, and flax was harvested in great quantities along the Waikato river.

"Today much of the land is leased to grazing or to chemical-based horticulture or sold and in private ownership.

"Employment opportunities and financial returns to hapu are minimal."

Mr Mende believed the project would develop thriving hapu communities and a skill base that could be used to to further develop the resources. He hoped it could be extended to other parts of the country.

"There are 20,000 iwi land trusts controlling 1.5 million hectares of land. Forty per cent of those lands are under-utilised."

Te Puni Kokiri account manager Martin Mariassouce said it was a promising project with low capital investment and potentially enormous returns.

"Both the sustainability and environmental protection have a synergy with tikanga."

Te Puni Kokiri wanted to promote such "bottom-up" development and arrest the negative social and commercial statistics in the area.

"The people are involved in the thinking and changing of the process - that is really different."

Mr Mariassouce said he would work with whanau to help them develop personal and business plans.

Martin Cooper, employment adviser with the Community Employment Group, said he would co-ordinate the landowners and relevant Government agencies to advance the project.

He said the employment opportunities should fit well with the local community after suitable training schemes were put in place.