Northland iwi Te Roroa's Waipoua restoration project earns award

Freda Walker, manager of Te Roroa's Te Toa Whenua Nursery, says with the great kauri Tane Mahuta only 20km away, biosecurity was always at top of mind. Photo / Supplied

A Northland iwi has won a top biosecurity award for its efforts to restore land returned as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement.

Te Roroa took home the Māori Award in the recent MPI 2021 New Zealand Biosecurity Awards in recognition of Te Toa Whenua - an initiative seeking to restore 900ha of the Waipoua Valley by converting it from exotic forestry to a mosaic of sustainable land uses.

The project, which borders the iconic Waipoua Forest, involves intensive pest plant and animal management, and indigenous reforestation.

Te Toa Whenua nursery manager Freda Walker said the project was "hugely rewarding" but came with significant challenges.

Top of mind was the sobering reality that it was located at ground zero of kauri dieback disease, caused by a pathogen called Phytophthora agathidicida.

The great kauri Tane Mahuta, which was more than 2000 years old, was only 20km away.

"Mana whenua consider these ancient trees our tupuna. To know that our ancestors are in serious danger is traumatising for us," she said.

"Biosecurity is top of mind in all of the work that we do, not only in our nursery waahi (space) but all over the whenua."

Walker said the group had created biosecurity policies and protocols to help protect the ngahere (forest), ensuring they did everything possible to avoid spreading the pathogen.

Te Toa Whenua also worked alongside scientists to make sure it was at the forefront of any new developments and could change the way it worked if needed.

The group was humbled by the award and the chance to share its story, she said.

Te Roroa's award-winning Te Toa Whenua team take a break from planting along Waipoua River. Photo / supplied

Te Toa Whenua Nursery, a critical part of the project, is funded through the One Billion Trees programme. It provides financial support for staff over three years to oversee the establishment and operation of a nursery with a capacity of 100,000 native seedlings per year. The funding ends in 2023.

Alex Wilson, of Te Uru Rākau - New Zealand Forest Service, said the project was an opportunity for Te Roroa and the community to actively exercise tangata whenuatanga. It allowed learning to take place where the language, identity and culture of learners and their whānau were affirmed.

As well as the nursery, Te Toa Whenua operates an extensive pest control and weed eradication programme. The predator control network is more than 32km long with more than 700 bait stations.

It is also developing a food forest and has a maara kai (vegetable garden) supplying the local community with fresh produce.

The 900ha returned in the Treaty settlement, which was signed in 2005 and passed by Parliament in 2008, forms a corridor along the Waipoua River from the coast to Waipoua settlement.

The other finalists for the Māori biosecurity award were Bay of Plenty Regional Council for its Ruawāhia/Mount Tarawera Wilding Pine Control Project and Kei Hea ngā Papaka for a marine pest crab surveillance project in Tauranga.

Te Roroa's Te Toa Whenua was also a finalist for the Community Award, while the Northland Regional Council was a finalist in the Local and Central Government Award for Project Pest Control, a secondary school programme aiming to protect native species from pests.