Kiriwaitingi Rei

research on the best solutions to the challenge, we have made a decision to invest in a new, purpose built foiling catamaran to help deliver our growth plans. The vessel is expected to allow us to sail three weeks more than present. Named Te Puia Whakaari, we expect delivery of this exciting new part of our future in April 2019.

Earlier this year the opportunity arose to acquire Matai Pacific Kiwifruit orchards in partnership with Te Arawa Group and Rotoma No.1. The orchards were established and provided strong cash-flows with potential for further conversion of Green to Gold.

The Government’s Provincial Growth Fund has significant potential for the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Focussing on job creation, regional economic growth, education, training and reducing our carbon footprint the Provincial Growth Fund has created scope for us to investigate exciting new opportunities to create sustainable employment in our rohe. We have submitted four projects for consideration by the Provincial Growth Fund, and are working closely with the Whakatāne District Council on their wharf replacement project.

Kaitiakitanga Continued focus on improving the performance of our farming operations has seen investment in a modern improved effluent treatment system at Ngakauroa Farm. The implementation of this system has greatly assisted reducing our nutrient loss to waterways on the farm. Furthermore, the removal of the old 4.4 million litre effluent settling ponds was an obvious bonus for the environment, with the unintended benefit of allowing irrigation to extend across a further 6 hectares of pasture, further improving productivity.

Our focus on the dry-stock farm, Ngāti Awa Farm, has concentrated on providing drinking water. Adding new pumps and water storage tanks on hilltops have meant we are able to introduce stock water troughs to over 100ha in the past two years. This year our investment in stock water has allowed us to fence off a further 1.1 kilometres of natural waterways, feeding into Ōhiwa Harbour.

White Island Tours have added filtered drinking water tanks to all our vessels, allowing us to remove over 16,000 single use plastic water bottles from the tour lunch. This is a hugely positive for the environment, and appropriate given our position on water bottling in the region.

Health and Safety Our focus remains on ensuring all our employees, contractors and visitors return home safety every day. This year has seen further changes in legislation regarding hazardous materials, and in particular asbestos. In total, the Rūnanga group owns 93 buildings, some of which are farm sheds, and others are permanently occupied residences. Our site-by-site review helped to develop an asbestos register to ensure all staff and contractors are informed of the risks before starting work.

Our continued focus on Health and Safety has also been recognised outside our organisation. Safe365, software we use to monitor our health and safety across the various entities, has recognised White Island Tours as one of the “Safest Places to Work 2018”. Our placing as a finalist from over 1,200 organisations is a fantastic reinforcement of the efforts made by the team at White Island Tours in this critical focus area.

Looking forward, our focus for this coming year is: • Creating training and employment opportunities for our people. • Continuing to build a high performing diversified portfolio of investments. • Having outstanding operating systems. • Improving our earnings and in particular our cash returns. • Further developing our relationships and engagement. • Being conscious of our environmental footprint.

I am very grateful for the support and encouragement I receive from Ngāti Awa members and Rūnanga Representatives. I look toward our future with a number of exciting opportunities on the horizon.

This year our investment in stock water has allowed us to “ fence off a further 1.1 kilometres ” of natural waterways, feeding into Ōhiwa Harbour.