New faces join PKW team

Descendants of Parininihi ki Waitōtara shareholders have joined the management team in two key appointments. Whenua talks to new general managers Puna Wano-Bryant (Shareholder Engagement) and Richard Buttimore (Property).

Parininihi ki Waitōtara (PKW) has welcomed two new managers to the team that looks after 20,000 hectares of ancestral land along with increasingly diverse business operations and the interests of more than 10,000 shareholders.

Puna Wano-Bryant (Taranaki Iwi, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Awa) has joined PKW as General Manager Shareholder Engagement, and Richard Buttimore (Taranaki [Ngā Māhanga a Tairi, Ngāti Haupoto]) is General Manager Property, a significant new role that aligns with PKW’s growth and development strategy. The appointments reflect intergenerational aspirations to care for the ancestral estate and the people who belong to it.

Puna’s career path has been in law. She was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor to the High Court in 2000, working in private practice and then consulting. But coming home to work with her iwi was always her destiny. Her work for the previous 10 years has been with Te Kāhui o Taranaki, both pre and post-settlement.

“The pull to come home and work for my own was always there, ever since I was a young girl. My mother, grandmother and uncles set the example in seeking to improve the access of Māori to good health, education and justice. I grew up around conversations about Māori rights and justice, which is why I went into law,” she explains.

“My whānau have been my greatest mentors, role models and support network, and I idolised my kuia. Nan raised us to contribute to our community. There was quite a bit of expectation but my whānau let me set my own path. I was nurtured into who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.”

Above: Puna Wano-Bryant

“But I was raised to push myself to contribute, and then to contribute more ... never to hang back if there’s mahi to be done. As a whānau, we support each other but we’re also part of our own critical reflection, testing each other’s thinking, knowledge and intentions.”

When she was 14, a student at Sacred Heart Girls’ College in New Plymouth, Puna was asked to karanga for a school ceremony. “So my Nan took me out the back of the sand dunes, to our whenua at Puketapu, to teach me. ‘Come on, now,’ she said, ‘off you go!’ She wanted me to be equipped culturally and spiritually. She taught me the importance of being prepared, of stepping up in the moment, so that those uncomfortable situations become easier.”

Puna’s grandmother Mākere Wano (nee Wharehoka) was born and raised on the coast at Pungarehu – a Parihaka child whose first language was te reo Māori. At a Hui Aranga in the early 1950s, Mākere met and later married John Wano, of Ngāti Awa. Raised an urban Māori in Wellington, he learnt te reo as a 60-year-old through Te Ataarangi. “That’s why my mother and uncles were part of the te reo revitalisation movement in the late 80s and 90s, and why I was raised with the expectation that I would have the reo,” Puna says.

Cultural connection is a priority aspiration in her new role.

“It’s not just about the history of Parininihi ki Waitōtara – it’s also about who we are as Taranaki Māori. As a legacy organisation, we want to work with iwi, hapū and whānau to tell the story of the land. It’s a beautiful, deep, rich history. Reconnecting our shareholders to their own people, stories and land is an important part of the legacy.”

Legacy and contributing back are central to Richard’s arrival at PKW, too. Born and bred on a West Coast lease farm, a previous scholarship recipient and future shareholder, he is proud to be in a position to help advance the incorporation’s aspirations.

Above: Richard Buttimore

Brought up on a lease farm on Kirihau Rd, near Ōakura, Richard was keenly aware from a young age of the land’s history. His father was a leasehold farmer who joined the 1996 tractor march to Wellington to oppose changing the lease regime. His mother is a PKW shareholder.

“It was an interesting dynamic. I was the youngest of four, and that meant I was Mum’s companion for all the PKW meetings. I was very aware of the issues, being exposed to both sides of the legislative dispute!” he remembers.

With an extensive background in commercial property in Australia and Aotearoa, he returned from Christchurch in 2016 to be the Operations and Commercial Manager at Papa Rererangi i Puketapu (New Plymouth Airport) before joining PKW.

His mahi now is to look after PKW’s extensive land holdings and seek opportunities to grow and diversify the incorporation’s commercial investments.

“We hold a significant footprint of rural land in Taranaki. Of our 20,000ha, we actively control 3700ha – most of our whenua remains under perpetual leases, with rights for the occupier to continue leasing. The end goal is to one day actively control all 20,000ha,” he says.

“We have a right of first refusal if a lessee decides to sell their leasehold interest, and there have been off-market transactions where we’ve approached the leaseholder to re-acquire land of strategic importance, but we’re capitally constrained so we have to prioritise which leases we want now and which to acquire later.”

Part of Richard’s new role is to review PKW’s land management strategy to see if it is still fit for purpose. The strategy includes identifying whenua for priority acquisition and aims to grow the footprint and consider other commercial opportunities.

“We’re a strong dairy and rural landowner but there is opportunity to diversify – not just in the commercial space but also through alternate land use,” Richard says.

PKW interests include agribusiness (it is the largest Taranaki supplier of milk to Fonterra), the Waipipi wind farm, radiata pine forestry, commercial properties in New Plymouth, Waitara and Stratford, crayfish, horticulture and a Māori coinvestment property fund.

“Dairy is creating wealth for us, but we understand that there is a social licence aspect in dairy farming. As a Māori organisation, you have to consider the environment, and our shareholders expect that we will continue to incorporate sustainable practices in all that we do. That might include exploring further opportunities like Waipipi, forestry, carbon farming and other land use alternatives,” says Richard.