First published in Stuff, by Sapeer Mayron
Mānuka, kānuka, karamu, puriri, harakeke – they’re all indigenous medicinal plants of Aotearoa, and they’re being returned to the banks of the Puhinui awa (river), which weaves through much of South Auckland.
“Whatever helps us would help the whenua as well,” says Naumai-aaria Naumai-aaria (Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Porou), who is an Awa Ranger with Te Pu-a-Nga Maara.
At age 21, she spends her work week clearing weeds and planting native bush along the winding Puhinui, which stretches around 12 kilometres.
She’s one of several Awa Rangers, some who work on the land like she does, and others who test the water quality in the Puhinui and monitor its health.
It’s not the job she dreamt of just a few years ago, she said.
“I wanted to be a police officer, I wanted to go into the force,” Naumai-aaria said.
Instead, she joined her aunty and volunteered on replanting work for some three years, and fell in love with the mahi (work).
“This is where my heart is,” she said.
Each morning, she starts her day tending to her tools. Then it’s out to the whenua, picking away the weeds that threaten the fledgling seedlings recently planted, or planting fresh kākano (seeds) in the soil.
It was Naumai-aaria and her fellow kaimahi (staff) who ripped the gorse out of the land they’re currently replanting – wearing leather gloves and hoping they’d withstand the prickles.
“This mahi has allowed me to self reflect, it’s given me time to calm down. Even though it’s quite physical, it’s quite a calming job,” she said.
“The people around are like-minded people who just want to help the whenua. And usually when you’re helping the whenua, you’re cleansing yourself too.”
Naumai-aaria and the Awa Rangers are funded by the Milford Foundation, which handed over $1.2 million in 2022 to boost a major effort to rehabilitate the Puhinui.
Long considered one of Auckland’s – and New Zealand’s – most polluted streams, the Puhinui could one day return to being a source of kai (food), wai (water) and mana (strength) for its neighbours.It’s why Milford Foundation CEO Bryce Marsden was so eager to sign such a large cheque – and why he also gets out to do planting when he can.
In the year since Milford signed over the funds to the Sustainable Business Network (SBN) to coordinate the Awa Rangers scheme and other Puhini regeneration work, the stream’s banks have had 14,000 native trees planted over 11,000 hours.
Fifteen people – like Naumai-aaria – have full-time jobs thanks to the scheme, and they intend to plant another 20,000 trees this winter.
But there is no rush, Marsden said, and good things take time.
“We think long-term – the timeline will be the timeline. But they’ve started the work and that’s the most important thing.”
The Milford Foundation’s grant is for five years of work, but Marsden said he expected to keep funding the mahi after that.
“At the moment, I can’t see why we wouldn’t – I’m on record for that now,” he laughed.
SBN’s Nature Programme Manager, Piet Tuinder, said without a wide net of partnerships, the project may not have made as much progress as it has in the last year.
All of Auckland’s local iwi are involved, as well as Auckland Council, developers, and multiple community groups from throughout the rohe (region).
“The challenge for us is how do we find additional partners and how do we grow the momentum so it grows on scale,” Tuinder said.
That scale is essential – not only for the river’s health but for ours too.
“You know, it's most of us live in cities, something like 87% of people live in cities.
“And we've got to connect people back to nature in the cities – if you're not connected to nature, if you don't have access to nature, then you don't value nature.
“For us as humans, we're part of nature; having that connection back to nature is so good for our well-being.”
That’s even more critical in South Auckland, Tuinder said, which has historically been a “dumping ground” for waste and heavy industry in Tāmaki Makaurau.
“And so South Auckland and the Manukau Harbour has been the recipient of all the stuff you don't want to be near.
“This project is about how do we start bringing nature back for this community and restoring, restoring that balance.”
Ranger team leader Chelsea Smart knows all about that balance. She’s been supporting the Awa Rangers on their journey to becoming full-time trained rangers.
That work is about more than tending to the whenua though – it’s about self-actualisation too, she said, which sometimes needs a little help to happen.
“I love encouraging their imagination and engaging in their ideas and making them come to life,” she said.
Like Naumai-aaria, Smart started working on the Puhinui as a volunteer, taken along by her favourite cousin to get involved.
It didn’t take long before she found her place – as mentor and supporter to the young rangatahi taking on the task of restoring their local awa.
“My job basically is just encourage them to become positive adults with no limits, to have no panic attacks, and to give them knowledge – so they're not scared, and they're like, ‘oh, actually, I do know how to do this’.”
One ranger with a love for building suddenly found herself in one of those panics when a more experienced builder came to Wiri to help build a temporary hub for them while they work.
Smart said this rangatahi immediately doubted herself and her skills in comparison to this more experienced builder – until she slowed down and realised she knew plenty, and was capable to not only help them, but lead them in the mahi.
Put another way by Smart: “So, yeah, I'm the auntie.”