ko te PŪKĀKĪ project humming

The hapu’s ecological restoration project is ‘humming’ according to Ngati Whatua o Orakei Corporate’s Heritage and Resource Manager, Ngarimu Blair. The past 3 years have seen their small team at the Whenua Rangatira grow from 1 part-time worker to 4 full-time staff and rangatahi training programs to build human resources. “We pretty much started with nothing except for a vision and passion from key members of our community”.

The team currently consists of Te Hira Hawke, Kim Komene (Ngati Hine), Robert Steedman and Wayne Walker with additional support from Ngarimu, Paul Davis Charmaine Wiapo and Bernadette Papa. 2004 will see a further 25,000 trees planted while a major noxious weed infestation was cleared by the boys in the block by Mission Bay over the past summer. All team members are passionate about their mahi, looking after papatuanuku, the birds, learning about karakia and matariki; as Wayne simply puts it, “I LOVE my job!”.