To see what eco-sourcing looks like in practice, I visited Makaurau Marae Nursery and talked to team members Huia, Liz, Phillip and Tracey.
“Eco-sourcing is gathering seeds from your local region to grow and put back into the ecosystem. We make sure what’s grown here returns to this whenua,” explains Liz.
Makaurau Marae Nursery is an iwi-led native plant nursery based in Ihumaatao, part of the Puhinui Regeneration Project supported by the Sustainable Business Network (SBN).
Ihumaatao holds some of the oldest living history in the city. A protest to protect the land from a major housing development in 2019 became a global symbol of indigenous sovereignty, grounded in the cultural, historical and environmental significance of the whenua. Eco-sourcing sits within that wider story, restoring the land while upholding the rights of those who whakapapa to it.
The nursery team’s approach to seed collection and propagation follows ancestral models of caring for Papatuuaanuku. Seeds are eco-sourced locally from the Manukau Ecological District and grown organically on site.
There’s something powerful in the idea that their tuupuna (ancestors) may have gathered rongoaa (traditional Maaori medicine) from the ancestors of the plants being nurtured today. The nursery doesn’t just grow plants, it grows opportunities. It has a full ecosystem restoration approach that focuses on education, employment and reconnection with te taiao (the environment). Strengthening the mauri of the whenua strengthens the mauri of the people too.
Every plant has whakapapa. A lineage tied not just to its parent plant, but to soils, insects, birds, waters and winds. Tracey, the nursery manager, emphasises the practical benefits of eco-sourcing.
“You’ll get a much better survival rate out of something growing in the same area going back in the same area. At the end of the day, that’s also a money and time saver.”
Phillip reflected on that deep sense of belonging that both people and plants feel toward their tuurangawaewae.
“Even for myself, when I’m up north where we’re from, I feel that same way. So maybe there’s a way plants feel that too.”
Across Aotearoa New Zealand, nursery teams are finding that seed collection is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
“Each year is different. The maramataka (Maaori lunar calendar) offers guidance, but in practice the plants can seed at completely different times from one year to the next. You just source what you can at the time,” Liz explains.
This also raises bigger questions. If the world has changed so drastically from the time of our tuupuna (ancestors), what does that mean for the maramataka today? As the team observes, it is not a strict calendar but a guideline, requiring careful observation and common sense.
Tracey, who has worked at the nursery since 2009, has noticed dramatic changes.
“When I started, you’d get harakeke seeds in November or December. After that, you couldn’t get any more. Now it’s February and you’ll still be getting seed,” she said.
She laughs that this can be helpful if you’ve missed the usual window, but the first five years of her work were consistent. Over the past decade, every season has been different. Climate change isn’t just altering seeds.
“With climate change you get a lack of insects, birds and bees. Then the ecosystem isn’t helping with supply. Even though you might’ve been able to source a seed, you’ve still got to monitor whether the environment is alright to grow it in. They say ‘fresh is best’ with seeds, but if it’s too hot they’re going to die,” says Tracey.
When seed seasons shift, the timing of propagation changes too. Makaurau Marae Nursery grows plants to order. If they’re unable to collect certain seeds in time, they may not be able to grow and deliver plants when they’re needed. Everything downstream gets thrown out of rhythm. While this isn’t a challenge they’re facing right now, it could become one in the future. To navigate this, the team tracks its work carefully, recording sowing dates, weather and strike rates to build maatauranga and adapt to these changes.
“We record what the weather was like when we sowed. If we get a good strike rate, then cool, we can sow in those conditions again,” says Tracey.
“We try to create a better system that works for us,” Huia adds.
When we think about climate change, we often jump to images of melting ice and major storms. But the impacts are well and truly present in the places we depend on every day. Our taiao gives us clean air, safe water, food, medicine, wellbeing and identity. While it’s just one piece of a much bigger puzzle, eco-sourcing helps protect those foundations.
Kohikohi ngaa kaakano, whakaritea te paarekereke, kia puaawai ngaa hua.
Gather the seeds, prepare the seed bed and you will be gifted with the abundance of food.
This page uses double vowels, rather than pōtae (macrons), in te reo to represent long vowel sounds. This reflects the dialect used by SBN's partners at Makaurau Marae Nursery.