Conservation Minister Hon Kiritapu Allan today announced a $7.5 million boost for the Te Hoiere/Pelorus Catchment Restoration Project, in Marlborough.

Project co-chairman Waihaere Mason said the Mahi mō te Taiao/Jobs for Nature funding will help restore Te Hoiere/Pelorus River and its tributaries from the mountains to the sea while supporting training and creating jobs.

The announcement was made on Ngāti Kuia land at Titiraukawa, near Pelorus Bridge.

“This is a real boost after a long time of planning,” says Mason who also chairs Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Kuia Trust. Since the Iwi settled with the Crown in 2014, restoring Te Hoiere catchments and the Sound had been a priority, along with employment.

In July, whanau started training towards an NMIT NZ Certificate in Horticulture Level 3 at a native plant nursery to be built at Titiraukawa with the Mahi mō te Taiao funding. Locally sourced plants will be propagated for planting along waterways, to be protected by fences.

As a child at Ruapaka near Canvastown in the 1940s and 50s, Mason remembers whanau gathering kaimoana from the Te Hoiere/Havelock Estuary. Since then, he has watched progressive deterioration of the Te Hoiere awa and estuary.

Ngāti Kuia welcomed the opportunity to apply mātauranga Māori principles to protecting Papatūānuku, working with others to restore Te Hoiere waterways to a more pristine state, he said.

Ngāti Kuia, Marlborough District Council, Department of Conservation and the community are involved in the 10-year Te Hoiere Project. The Ministry for the Environment, Ministry for Primary Industries, Fonterra, the New Zealand Landcare Trust, Forest and Bird and Rangitāne o Wairau are supportive.

The fund will pay for 79 full time equivalent jobs over four years focused on restoring freshwater across the catchment, eliminating predators and weeds, developing land management tools and running the nursery, in a region impacted by loss of tourism due to Covid-19.

Marlborough Mayor, John Leggett, welcomes the investment from the Department of Conservation’s $1.245 billion Mahi mō te Taiao programme which will create 11,000 nature-based jobs. Te Hoiere Catchment Restoration Project has been described by the Ministry for the Environment as an exemplar for the rest of New Zealand.

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