6 minute read
Te mana o te wai o taikātu ki ngāti hāua - Taiao grant enhances connection and capability for water and tradtional species monitoring
Support from the PKW Taio Fund has enabled pāhake from Ngāti Hāua, committed to the maintenance of the mauri of their traditional awa, Taikātu, to pass on their knowledge and kaupapa to the next generation.
Historically, the Ngā Ruahinerangi hapū Ngāti Hāua reside in an area in South Taranaki known as Auroa. Their ancestor Auroa travelled south to the Whanganui River area and met a wahine called Hinengākau. They had twins called Hāua Piko and Hāua Roa. Ngāti Hāua Piko, as a people, remained in the area from the maunga to the sea, where Ōpunakē is to the west, Kaponga to the northeast, and Manaia to the southeast. Hāua Roa returned to Whanganui where their uri remain to this day.
In the 1880s, after King Tawhiao sent representatives known as Tekau Mārua down from Waikato to support Parihaka, the relationships that emerged helped consolidate Ngāti Hāua hapū presence in Ngā Ruahinerangi. Kinship ties to Ngāti Hauā in Waikato are also still maintained.
Ngāti Hāua pahake, Karl Adamson shared some insights into the present hapū connection with their ancestral awa.
“Ngati Hāua has always been quite particular on who we associate ourselves with. We are very strong in our own history and what we do. What we find is that we are constantly having to monitor the activity that occurs on our whenua. It’s an area where there is a lot of interest in oil and gas reserves and intensive farming.”
“It is tedious for us to constantly get resource consent and cultural assessments requests or whatever the case may be only a few days before the submissions are due. So we decided to initiate our own taiao practice and the awa monitoring was one of those projects.”
“A few years ago one of the farmers had built a dam that he didn’t have consent for on our Taikātu awa. We only found out when the Taranaki Regional Council attempted to get the farmer to retrospectively apply for consent.”
“A few years ago we found that due to man-made dams on Taikātu awa a lot of the tuna had migrated down to the lake. The dam had restricted the tuna getting to the moana. With the support of Te Korowai o Ngāruahine we started our own awa monitoring and engaged with PKW to get a grant to continue the project.”
In April 2021 Te Korowai o Ngāruahine Trust made the request to the PKW Taiao Fund with the support of Ngāti Hāua to continue the awa monitoring project.
“We felt from an iwi perspective that it was an important kaupapa to support,” says Te Aorangi Dillon, Chief Executive Officer of Te Korowai o Ngā Ruahine Trust.
“We also thought it was a really important to partner up with PKW through the Taiao Grant opportunity to get our kids involved with the awa and look at the testing PKW Taiao team were going to teach us about.”
“Then we could make a decision whether that was the best way for us to carry on for testing our awa, or if there are other cultural indicators that we should include in our testing regime.”
With other kaitiaki amongst the hapū, pāhake were actively involved in the monitoring of the awa right down to the takutai moana, and hapū rangatahi were starting to think about what their responsibilities were, to not just the awa Taikātu, but also to the other awa within the takiwā as well.
Although the original proposal had been to monitor four streams within the hapū rohe, Raoa, Taikātu, Otākeho and Kuporaho, after further discussions it was determined that the only secure access was to the Taikātu via some of the reserve lands located behind Ōkare ki Uta marae.
Dion Luke, who oversaw the project on behalf of Te Korowai o Ngāruahine Trust, said that the key focus was also to build the capacity and capability of the hapū. This included:
• Training in the use of Stream Health Monitoring Assessment kits and Environmental DNA sampling (SHMAK, eDNA)
• Wānanga on traditional species and the health of awa
• The development of cultural health monitoring indicators and methodology.
“We had the benefit of having Bart Jansma, a water ecologist who came on board as an environmental advisor to the project. His knowledge was invaluable, and it was great to see him share his expertise with our rangatahi,” added Dion.
After multiple obstacles due to COVID and weather events, the first monitoring activity was held at Ōkare ki Uta marae in May 2022. This was attended by around 25 uri of Ngāti Hāua – mostly taiohi and rangatahi.
Josephine, Luka, Jordan and Raniera from the PKW Taiao Team and Tāne Houston, the lead ranger for the Ngāruahine Mounga team were also there to share their knowledge and expertise.
With an extension for the project approved by PKW, the second monitoring activity got underway in February 2023. Along with the MCI (Macroinvertebrate Community Index - biological indicator of the health of wadeable rivers and stream) results, the fish survey showed there is a surprising variety and abundance of biodiversity in the Taikātu Stream. The dam on the awa also explained the high amount of sediment at the monitoring location. Everything caught during the monitoring exercises was also returned to the Taikātu Stream by the taiohi.
Though pāhake had advised that traditionally kākahi, freshwater mussels, were found in the Taikātu, the samples of eDNA submitted for analysis confirmed the presence of banded kōkopu and kōura only. No kākahi DNA was found in the eDNA sample, suggesting that kākahi may only exist downstream of the site being monitored.
“What this project has demonstrated is that there is a distinct lack of monitoring conducted by the Taranaki Regional Council on any awa within the rohe of Ngāti Hāua,” said Dion. “This is consistent with the Council’s
approach which prioritises larger awa that provide municipal water supply, support large industries or have high recreational values.”
“Ngāti Hāua now have the skills and capability to develop and undertake their own monitoring, including cultural health, to counter this and inform the responses to resource consent applications. There is also an opportunity to compare their results with those of PKW’s monitoring mahi.”
Any monitoring projects for the iwi and hapū will require investment in targeted development of taiohi and rangatahi to create a succession pathway to ensure the hapū can maintain its kaitiaki role in their takiwā – which can be a challenge.
Ngāti Hāua pahake Karl Adamson says, “The biggest issue that we find is funding. What we would really like would be to have someone on the ground to do the monitoring in a paid role, as most of what we do now is done voluntarily. This project has demonstrated the importance of our hapū working together with PKW.”
