Protecting Our Taiao – What I Took Away from Day One of the Endangered Species National Hui
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
By Sarah Churchouse, Restore Rodney East
I arrived at the Endangered Species National Hui in Kirikiriroa Hamilton open minded, ready with pen in hand to jot down as much information as I could.
What I didn't expect was how strongly these key messages would connect almost every presentation across the day.
Everything is connected.
The weather, the moon, the forests, the rivers, wetlands and ocean. Birds, fish, insects, trees and people. We are not separate from nature — we are part of it.
This understanding is deeply embedded in traditional Māori knowledge and mātauranga Māori. It recognises the relationships between people and whenua, ngahere, wai and moana, and the responsibilities that come with those relationships.
And one of the strongest messages I took from the hui was that Māori leadership and mātauranga Māori are vital to the future of conservation in Aotearoa.
This wasn't a token addition to the conservation conversation. It was woven through the stories, knowledge, leadership and mahi being shared.
Science, technology, monitoring and research all have an important role to play. But we are stronger when these are brought together with mātauranga Māori, tikanga, lived experience and the leadership of those with deep connections and responsibilities to place.
And once you start looking at conservation through that lens, the species stories stop being individual stories. The health of the forest affects the streams. The streams feed the wetlands and rivers. The rivers connect to the sea. The health of one part of the system affects another, and ourselves.
Habitat is everything. And increasingly, it is the loss of quality, connected habitat that is putting our species under pressure.
DAY 1 : A day of stories, knowledge and leadership
Our MC for the two days was Norm Hill, and what a way to keep a room full of conservation people engaged! A talented guitarist, Norm brought warmth, humour and authenticity to the hui and kept the energy up throughout the day.
Then came a remarkable line-up of people showing what happens when knowledge, leadership and action come together.
Tawera Nikau – Have the vision
Tawera Nikau opened the day with a story of resilience, leadership and purpose. After an outstanding international rugby league career, including captaining the New Zealand Māori team, Tawera has turned his energy towards restoring his family farm and beyond and his community and te taiao. He has restored wetlands, protected streams and brought ngahere back to his home.
His message was simple: Have the vision. See where you want to go. Then work out how to get there. But a vision doesn't become reality on its own. We need to bring people with us, build support networks and sustain projects over the long term.
Tawera also spoke passionately about koi carp eradication and creating safe spawning habitat for tuna. And importantly, he spoke about the need to develop the next generation of environmental leaders.
Young people coming into the environmental space are our future leaders. We need to mentor them, support them and give them the opportunity to lead. It was a reminder that restoration isn't just about what we do on the land. It is also about the people, relationships and leadership that make that mahi possible.
Riki Parata – Ancient species, ancient knowledge
Riki Parata, sharing the work of Hokonui Rūnanga in Southland, demonstrated the power of bringing mātauranga Māori and science together through surveys, riparian planting and innovative breeding programmes.
And then I met a species I knew almost nothing about.
Kanakana — or piharau in the North Island — are lamprey. These jawless, boneless ancient fish have been in Aotearoa's rivers for more than 360 million years — long before the dinosaurs. That absolutely blew my mind.
As juveniles, they filter-feed and help cleanse streams. As adults, they migrate thousands of kilometres between river and sea. Once, millions travelled up the Mataura Falls to spawn. They were an important resource for Māori and an important part of the food web, but we changed the landscape and that changed everything. These fascinating creatures remain poorly understood. Monitoring only began in earnest in 2008, and there is still so much to learn.
Riki's presentation was a powerful reminder that there is knowledge held in our communities and passed down through generations that is critical to understanding and protecting our taiao.
Siobhan Nuri – Give our tuna a chance
Siobhan Nuri, a freshwater fisheries scientist and PhD candidate at the University of Waikato, brought incredible knowledge and enthusiasm to the room. We learnt more about our tuna and the extraordinary journeys they undertake between freshwater and the ocean.
Climate change brings huge unknowns. Changes to ocean currents could potentially affect their migrations, yet we still don't know exactly what those impacts will mean.
So what can we do?
Restore riparian margins. Lower water temperatures. Protect wetlands. Restore streams and riverbanks. Improve fish passage so tuna can move upstream.
And perhaps one of the simplest messages: leave the big ones.
Those large tuna are the breeders. They need to make the extraordinary journey back to Tonga to reproduce. Again, the solution comes back to habitat and connection.
Te Ataahua Richmond – Monitoring must lead to protection
Te Ataahua Richmond brought a powerful combination of tikanga, mātauranga and hands-on restoration experience, particularly through her work protecting pekapeka around Lake Waikare.
One message stood out: Monitoring must lead to protection.
Gathering data is only useful if we use that knowledge to change what we do.
Pekapeka have a home range of around 56 square kilometres, and their populations have declined dramatically over just three generations.
They rely on freshwater systems for food and need connected habitat.
Te Ataahua also emphasised the importance of long-term relationships with landowners and bringing Western science and mātauranga Māori together.
And there was a lovely reminder that while artificial roost boxes can help, the best homes for our bats are trees.
Ancient trees aren't just scenery. They are homes, ecosystems and part of the infrastructure that allows species to survive.
Hark – Technology helping us see what is there
Miranda Wells and Haki Keogh introduced us to Hark, an emerging acoustic monitoring technology being developed with conservation communities and cultural priorities in mind. Hark can run more than 100 species classifiers simultaneously, covering birds, bats and invasive pest species.
What really caught my attention was the potential for real-time information.
If a threatened species is detected, you can know about it and respond.
For community conservation groups, technology like this could change the way we understand what is happening in our forests and restoration sites.
It is another example of how new technology can complement the knowledge and mahi already happening on the ground.
Dean Baigent-Mercer – The forest wants to live
Then came Dean Baigent-Mercer, described as a Living Lorax — and it is easy to see why.
Dean took us into the world of ancient forests and the incredible life that exists high in the canopy. We heard about the scale of forest loss and the enormous pressure introduced pests continue to place on what remains.
Deer, pigs and goats aren't simply eating plants. They are destroying the understory and preventing the forest from regenerating. And there is so much happening above our heads that we rarely see.
Ancient trees become giant caves. Plants grow on trees. Leaf litter and organic material accumulate in the canopy, creating soil. An entire ecosystem exists high above the forest floor. And then, when the sun goes down, another world begins. Pekapeka emerge from their homes in the giant trees and the night shift begins.
But Dean's most powerful message was also the simplest:
THE FOREST WANTS TO LIVE.
Our job is to take the pressure off.
Coordinate pest control. Protect the habitat. Allow regeneration.
The forest and the species already know what to do.
Apiti Whānau – Carry the work forward
Davis Apiti of Ngāti Te Wehi and the Apiti whānau brought decades of advocacy and community leadership to the story of the critically endangered Māui dolphin.
Their work, alongside scientists including Professor Liz Slooten, has helped bring the plight of Māui dolphins to national and international attention. The numbers are devastating — from around 500 Māui dolphins in the 1970s to approximately 48 today. But the message from the whānau was not one of giving up. It was about responsibility.
We are carrying the responsibilities of those who carried it before us.
And therefore we have a responsibility to carry the work forward.
Take the message to our communities. Take it nationally. Take it internationally.
One of the major threats discussed was bottom trawling in their habitat.
Again, it came back to protecting the ecosystem that supports the species.
Phil McCabe – Our ocean, our life source
The final presentation of the day came from Phil McCabe, talking about the campaign to protect Aotearoa's seas from seabed mining.
Our oceans support all life on Earth. Beneath the surface is an extraordinary community of life — mussels, worms, shellfish, crustaceans and countless organisms living in and around the seabed. Seabed mining doesn't just affect one species. It can destroy the living communities within the seabed and disrupt the food webs that depend on them.
Māui dolphins, pygmy blue whales, kororā and the fish and shellfish that coastal communities depend on are all part of this interconnected system.
Phil shared the story of KASM, which grew from a local response in Whāingaroa into a nationwide movement of people standing up for our oceans.
People coming together to protect place.
One message. Many species.
By the end of Day One, I was struck by how little the species themselves had in common — lamprey, tuna, pekapeka, ancient forest species, Māui dolphins and marine life.
Yet the threats connecting them were remarkably similar.
Loss of habitat. Loss of quality habitat. Fragmentation. Degraded wetlands. Changes to waterways. Dying forests. Introduced pests. Unsustainable activities in our marine environment.
And the answer keeps coming back to the same place:
Protect what remains. Restore what has been degraded. Reconnect what has been fragmented. Take the pressure off.
But there was another message that was just as important.
We cannot do this alone.
Māori leadership and mātauranga Māori are vital. Science is vital. Community knowledge is vital. Rangatahi are vital. Landowners, volunteers, researchers, advocates, iwi and local communities all have a role.The strength comes from bringing those things together.
And then there was the hope
One of the most inspiring things about the hui wasn't simply hearing about the challenges facing our endangered species. It was hearing about what is already being achieved.
The people in that room are not sitting back and accepting decline. They are restoring wetlands. Protecting streams. Reconnecting habitat. Bringing forests back. Removing pests. Monitoring species that were once overlooked. Protecting our oceans. Sharing mātauranga. Working alongside science. Bringing communities together. Creating opportunities for rangatahi. Challenging the systems that put pressure on our taiao. And the impact of that mahi is beginning to show. AND THIS IS ONLY DAY ONE!
(keep posted for day two) and
