Iwi brings life back to its land
Iwi restores ancestral lands. One broccoli at a time, writes Marty Sharpe.
Over the course of his 36 years Hemi Robinson has watched the area he calls home slowly decay. Rust and lichen-covered car bodies litter paddocks, once-loved weatherboard homes crumble quietly into the dirt and wave after wave of blackberry, gorse and bracken encroach and consume once fertile and productive land.
This is Raupunga, between Napier and Wairoa. Population 250-ish and falling.
The quietly spoken Robinson, a father of two, is cutting broccoli from a coastal field with million-dollar views toward Cape Kidnappers.
He’s one of the 7000 members of Nga¯ ti Pa¯ hauwera, which six years ago received $42 million in cash and land as part of its Treaty settlement with the Crown for the wrongful alienation of the iwi from its lands.
Land that hadn’t been taken from the iwi was either unusable or left in titles that became so fragmented it was rendered unworthy of investment.
It’s there for anyone making the drive between Napier and Wairoa along State Highway 2 to see. Feral goats roam freely along the road’s edge and noxious plants blanket large swaths of what was once, and should be still, productive land. Which is where Hemi comes in. Formerly a fencer, he has this year been employed by the iwi’s Treaty settlement group to start converting this wasteland into productive land again.
He began by creating a 9-hectare field of broccoli on coastal land at the foot of the iwi’s sacred maunga, Ta¯ whirirangi. ‘‘This used to be just another paddock. It was privately owned. The iwi bought it about two years ago,’’ he said, while deftly slicing off broccoli leaves. ‘‘Many of our wha¯ nau have got land, but because it has so many owners nothing ends up getting done with it. If one groups starts doing something with it, the other lot want something from it even if
‘‘You don’t need to move away for work any more. The more paddocks we get, the more work we have for everyone else too.’’
Hemi Robinson
they’re not helping. So it ends up doing nothing,’’ he said.
Work is well under way to convert other bits of land into 40 to 50ha of winter vegetables, with Hemi working seven days on a tractor clearing and ploughing in preparation.
By next summer these paddocks will also be growing summer crops like kumara.
‘‘You don’t need to move away for work any more. The more paddocks we get, the more work we have for everyone else too,’’ he said.
‘‘Raupunga used to be quite a town back in the day, but everyone had to move away when the work went away,’’ he said.
He’s right. It was once a bustling spot. There was a store and post office, a primary school and high school, a garage, a Ministry of Works and Railways depot, and even a cinema.
They’re all gone. The only vestige is the rail line, a forlorn post box and the barely legible, faded writing on what was the shop.
For the past two years Luke Hansen has been commercial manager for the iwi trust. With a background in horticulture and a PhD in plant science, he was quick to see the land’s untapped potential. Thanks to his expertise, especially when it comes to grass, there are oases of startlingly green paddocks in the hills, home to about 700 Friesian bull calves.
‘‘In the short term, over the next 3 to 4 years we hope to get into 130 to 140ha of vegetable cropping. We’ll end up having people employed year-round doing this,’’ Hansen said.
Of course Hansen understands the iwi’s visceral connection to the land. For him though it’s the business aspect and potential that excite him most.
‘‘Success for me will be when we’re running two truck and trailer units every day out of this area carrying our produce. We’re not quite a quarter of the way there yet. It’ll be a break-even exercise for us this year,’’ he said.
‘‘You’ve seen the standard of living around here. It’s not flash. Imagine this region when you’ve got people employed and earning a good wage. We can change the socio-economic profile of this region.’’
Key to all that will be convincing the many owners of many smaller blocks, often more than 100, that leasing back to the iwi will be good for everyone.
One owner who won’t need convincing is Taiawhio Gemmell. Raised in Wairarapa but born to parents from Raupunga who had to move away for work, Gemmell is part-owner of a small block inland from the town.
He can trace his family’s connection to the land to at least the 17th century.
‘‘There’s real blood in the ground here. It was the usual story, no work so off to the cities. That’s what my parents did.
‘‘If we were living here, we’d have a crack ourselves. But like many landowners we live elsewhere, so it makes sense to combine our block with others to make a more viable business.
‘‘It’s a longterm thing. It kills two birds with one stone. It makes the land productive again and hopefully economically viable for the next generation,’’ he said. He was last in the area eight years ago. ‘‘I’ve been blown away by the changes.
‘‘The land’s always been rough and not much good for anything but horses, goats and pigs, to be honest. It was backward.
‘‘All I see now is progress and that has to be good for everyone.’’
Gemmell is part of the Treaty settlement group and the business development manager for Nga¯ ti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, which in March is expected to sign off on a $93m settlement and 19,000ha of land.
‘‘So I take a real interest in what is happening here. Being one of the later settlements we have the benefit of seeing what has worked for others, and what hasn’t.
‘‘We have a lot of areas like this that can be developed so we are watching closely,’’ he said.