INTRODUCTION Tūhoe seeks to strengthen its kinship. Kinship to the land. Kinship to each other. Reinvigorating vibrant and prosperous communities. Supporting Tūhoe spirit, responsibility and permanency. The vision of a balanced approach to sustainability has led a group of like-minded people to Te Urewera, to Tūhoe. A community of people who also see the true value in a reconnected relationship with nature, with experience and knowledge in infrastructure, development and housing, willing to exchange learnings and understandings. In a first, Tūhoe - Te Uru Taumatua, Tūhoe Tribals and Tūhoe hapū came together, to host these people. To share, connect and learn.
Who took part in this event? There were 123 registered participants for the four day event held in February 2018. More than 100 manuhiri came from far and wide - New Zealanders as well as visitors from other countries. They came from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, bringing their passions and aspirations as artists, living building designers, permaculturalists, social impact investors, eco-village directors, landscape designers, architects, project managers, engineers, researchers, energy systems designers, waste minimisers, resource management regulators, planners, students, environmental policymakers, musicians, building materials specialists, facilitators, writers, earth house builders, economists, photographers, healers, entrepreneurs, teachers, film-makers, nurses, apartment developers, interior designers, city makers, futurists, leaders and advocates for change. There were also Tūhoe participants nominated by their Tribals. Manuhiri were hosted by four marae in Rūātoki and Waimana. The hau kaina of each marae took an active part in discussions with manuhiri throughout the event in a twoway exchange of minds, hearts and spirit.
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Some were defined by what they do in the world, others by the presence of being they brought, and others again by the intelligence of mind, experience and heart they
contributed to the conversation. Many, I found out later, were a big deal in the world. To me they were all just very interesting people with a common goal of serving the world into a better reality. Who ever we were, we were all welcomed and held in accordance with a deep custom of protocol and genuine desire to engage the gifts we carried. The Marae were opened to us, the food was prepared (with all the special dietary needs taken into consideration) and the TĹŤhoe people held true to their call by holding themselves in the space with mana and allowed us, the manuhiri (guests) to explore, develop, grow ideas and connections.
We were called and hosted by an amazing proactive contingency of the Tūhoe people and their cohorts to brainstorm and conceptualise the building of future Tūhoe village communities. Already Tūhoe has built an amazing ‘Living building’ called Te Kura Whare as prescribed by the living building challenge (the highest ecological building standard in the world), the first in NZ. The idea is that Tūhoe wants to continue leading the charge of regenerative practices applied to their hapū and they were seeking help from the greater community of experience and expertise. VISION KEEPER, AUCKLAND
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Kei te kii mai nā
manuhiri ki a mātau, ‘you fallas are high maintenance’,
nā te mea, ia te wā ka kuhu mai rātau
ki roto i te wharekai, kua hora nā tēpu, kua wera te wai,
ā, kua kite rātau
te āhua a Tūhoe. ŌHOTU, TE WHĀNAU PANI
”
“TEAM PURPLE WAS WELCOMED UP THE LONG GREEN ARMS OF THE WAIMANA VALLEY, WHERE THE MIST COMES SIDLING UP THE PADDOCKS IN THE MORNING, AND THE OWLS RISE FROM THE HILLS AT NIGHT. TĀTAIĀHAPE MARAE DEDICATED THEMSELVES TO MAKING US FEEL LIKE WE’D NEVER WANT TO LEAVE. THEY GAVE US FOOD AND FRIENDSHIP AND TREATED US LIKE FAMILY. THEY EVEN MANAGED TO LOOK GUILTY ABOUT WAKING US UP TO GET GOING AT FOUR SOMETHING AM.”
HOUSING AND URBAN POLICY ADVISOR, AUCKLAND
“
Kua whai mārama
rātau ā muri i te hui, ā, ko mātau hoki
tēna. I whakaoho i
ō tātau whakaaro ō
tātau hinenaro, ō tātau nākau ki nā tāona
mai rānō mai roto i a
tātau; Ēnari auare ake i aro atu ki a tāua, ā,
i pakeke ai tāua, kua waia ki ērā tikana. TE TŌTARA, TE UREWERA
”
NewLearnings
REINVIGORATING TŪHOE VILLAGE COMMUNITIES
Four Fundamental Principles
Te Ohu participants spent time visiting parts of Waimana, Rūātoki and Ruatāhuna, and talking to Tūhoe about the history of, and aspirations for, those places. Participants worked together on questions that evoked thoughts and feelings that could be used to guide Tūhoe village reinvigoration: • What do you sense here? What would you change? What would you keep? • How would you create a thriving, caring community of 100 people living in this place? Where would you start? What would you need? • What scale/size of community could be sustained in this place? Consider: people burden on the place, behaviours of people, systems, resources and constraints. • What options are there for community enterprise that provides livelihood/income and restores and regenerates Te Urewera? • How would you design learning around the children in this place?
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BUILDING A VILLAGE - WHERE DO YOU START? Start with kōrero. Grow capability to build a village. Build out from existing marae. Start small and ensure you have buy-in. Clearing the rubbish away. Reveal the land underneath. Look into the land. Do so cognisant of values and kaupapa. “Kaupapa – know it, practice it, share it, and hold the space” Existing blocks, how to go beyond – find the next step. It should be through clustering, especially build off existing structure – the beginnings of centres can be many and most likely to already be there. In the village establish seasonal gardens, refurbish the existing capital stock and add new pieces. Bring back tuna, pigs, and horses. Build off agriculture. Share the skills, a sort of community workshop. Create a
Village Hub or Village Heart, a centre of knowledge held in the village of what “we can do” that can be shared and accessed by all. And eventually charge outside for access to the knowledge. For the individual ensure there is a purpose/meaning/role for everyone - be it to grow something new or maintain the community. Ensure you bring unity, so ensure road infrastructure is channelled around the outside of the village, do not cut through it. Bring community gardens to the centre. Support agriculture. Generate power from the river, it is the strongest and most sustainable energy force and it can be done in ways that do not have an impact on stock, flow and habitat.
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ENVIRONMENT POLICY ADVISOR, WELLINGTON
Where is the shared open space, endowed with light, that forms the heart of the village? What existing centres are there to cluster gardens, buildings and other activities around?
Will rubbish, pests, blackberry need to be cleared away so you can see into the land?
From the kōrero emerged four fundamental principles for reinvigorating Tūhoe village communities: LAND
JUSTICE LIVELIHOOD ENERGY
What is the future village capacity that you want to provide for?
What are the best sources of power generation for the village? From observations of energy sources: sunlight, wind, waterways. How will the village reduce its energy consumption and avoid burning fossil fuels? What water sources will the village use, and how will wastewater be made clean? How will the village reduce its need to consume water?
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PRACTITIONERS SPOKE,
AT VARIOUS TIMES ACROSS THE FOUR DAYS, ABOUT
HOW THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN TE KURA WHARE HAS PERMANENTLY CHANGED HOW THEY, AND OTHERS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN,
APPROACH DEVELOPMENTS, OFTEN IN QUITE SIGNIFICANT WAYS SUCH AS THROUGH ELIMINATING CERTAIN TOXIC MATERIALS.
”
HOUSING AND URBAN POLICY ADVISOR, AUCKLAND
What locally sourced natural products are there that could be used as building materials? What building materials should be avoided because of their negative impact on human or ecosystem health?
What is the health of the waterways and the forests near the village? From observations of tuna, koura, birds, bees and other fish and animals. What is the health of the soil, and where are the best places to establish food gardens for the village? From observations and analysis of soil samples, and observations of what has grown there.
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The words of Lorna, a Tūhoe woman born, raised and
intimately connected with her whenua, Te Urewera, have had a powerful effect on me. “Who is Te Urewera?”, she began, as we sat in the half darkness of the marae one evening. “Te Urewera is my mother, my home, the place
where I feel at peace, the place where I feel most comfortable.
Without her, I am lost. She is the source of my language, my food, my health, my spiritual wellbeing, my medicine cabinet. She is where we (Tūhoe) are who we are.”
Her words have stuck with me and bring tears to my eyes
every time I recall them. The intimacy of her connection
with her place gets to me. It speaks to my heart. It’s not something that I’ve experienced, having moved around a
lot, my ancestors hailing from unknown places in Scotland, Ireland, England. My connection to my own iwi a typewritten family tree on a page.
Did my ancestors once have a deep connection to their
place? Is this something we all yearn for and have a genetic
memory of, deep in our bones? I don’t know. But the tears make me suspect we do.
I come away from Te Urewera inspired and challenged. What would our world look like if we all truly believed that the earth was our mother, our home, our source of
nourishment? How would we live? What would we do
differently? It’s much easier to imagine this in a place as
beautiful as Te Urewera than in the middle of suburban Auckland.
Can we regain a sense of this connection? I believe we can, and we need to. Papatūānuku is groaning from the stress we’re putting her under, demanding that she sustain a
lifestyle she isn’t able to sustain. Her climate is changing rapidly. She’s running out of room to absorb all the waste
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we’re creating. Our loss of connection to her is making us sick. Without this connection, we are lost.
WASTE MINIMISATION FACILATOR, AUCKLAND
How will art and beauty feature in the village to celebrate culture, to delight and to inspire? How will the village connect people to nature, place and climate?
“Nā te noho hauora o nā kaumātua i aua wā, ka kitea te ronoā mo ēnei rā.” TE TŌTARA, TE UREWERA
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WHAT TŪHOE IS DOING TO BUILD CONFIDENCE IS
50 YEARS AHEAD OF ANYONE ELSE IN NEW ZEALAND. TE KAWA O TE UREWERA HAS SUCH BOLDNESS!
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“Maybe next time, allow more time for talking, because during dinner times and lunch times there wasn’t enough time to answer their questions.” TĀTAIĀHAPE, NĀTI RAKA
“LEARNING - KIDS COULD LEAD THE WAY. DEEPER INTEGRATION OF TŪHOE INTO SCHOOLS AND IN THE REGION. GET THEM INVOLVED IN ALL ASPECTS OF SOCIETY/COMMUNITY (ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL) INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL”
“I ohorere te hapū, ka pōhēhē, moumou moni noaiho, ka mea atu au, ehe nā rātau anō e utua i a rātau.” “Ko te tikana kē, mā tātau anō e
whānai i nā manuhiri māu kē e utu.” “Ko nā koha, ko nā mātaurana i
heria mai, nā mōhiotana, nā moemoeā” TE TŌTARA, TE UREWERA
“
The more I know,
the more I don’t know. We just scratched the
surface. Thank you for making me feel ignorant again.
“
”
Seeds have been sown
in our hearts that will
take time for our minds to deal with.
”
“I saw hope. Technology people ready to learn. Elders ready to listen to young people. Young people ready to listen to tradition. People ready to breathe in and out together, acknowledge the fear together, move through it together, into doing something about what we care about.” “I AM AN ENGINEER. I THOUGHT I WAS HERE TO HELP TŪHOE DESIGN A VILLAGE BUT I FOUND I WAS IMMERSED IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. TŪHOE, KEEP INVITING ENGINEERS, AND KEEP EDUCATING THEM.”
What natural hazards are there in this place? Consider floods, wind and stability of the land, and the future impact of climate change - more extreme wind and rain events.
“I AM SEEING HOME FROM A NEW PERSPECTIVE. YOU ARE FREE, SO CAN SEE THINGS I CANNOT SEE. YOU HAVE TAKEN MY VISION OUTSIDE OF THE THREE BEDROOM STATE HOUSE.”
“I AM GOING TO TAKE THIS BACK TO MY KAINGA. WE WILL PICK FROM YOURS, WHAT WE NEED EVENTUALLY, MAKE IT OUR OWN. KIA ORA KOUTOU.” “IT HAS BEEN AN HONOUR TO WORK WITH TŪHOE. I AM DOING A THESIS ON LIVING BUILDINGS WITH THE CHINESE COMMUNITY IN WELLINGTON.” “THE OHU HAD ‘WEHI’. IT WAS AWE INSPIRING AND HAS GIVEN ME A NEW ENERGY THAT I CAN TAKE BACK TO MY WORLD.”
“Tūhoe has so much to give the world…us as a planet, learning to heal. Like homeopathy, a very tiny amount can have a profound effect.”
“For the time that we were there, the rubbish
we only had was 2 to 3 bags. Usually we would fill the whole trailer up.” TE TŌTARA, TE UREWERA
Where will the paths be put for walking and cycling? How can roads be designed to allow access to the village without cutting through the heart of it? How will the village reduce its need for cars and trucks? How will village waste be avoided, recycled or reused?
Relationships New relationships were made: MANUHIRI AND TŪHOE | BETWEEN MANUHIRI There is a healing going on. The Tūhoe people I met were alive with receptivity and had a willingness to share the strong wisdoms alive in their culture as a framework for building strategy on. There was a great deal of humility between both parties, iwi and manuhiri. I saw in every person a desire to belong and contribute to a better
world…To me it came down to human relationship and how we need to soften our need to be right, our “ego” if you will, to hear the call of the next piece of the puzzle, the perfection in a unified approach. This is why the Te Ohu was so strong, because each party was in a state of respect for the other, allowing the connections to be made and the gifts within the individual to rise up and hold a place in the visioning process.” VISION KEEPER, AUCKLAND “I spoke to a man from Victoria
University, and he told me
to come down to Wellington
and said he could teach me
architecture.”
TAUARAU, NĀTI RONO
“The connections we have made are real.
It’s a social ecology. It doesn’t have to end when we walk out
this door. We can keep it going.”
“WE ARE READY TO GET STARTED. THE ‘WE’ IS BIGGER NOW.”
To reduce reliance on external money, what will be shared _ within the village, and between other villages/hapu? What activities for livelihood (jobs) and enterprise (businesses) will happen in the village? What places for recreation will the village have?
“Mihi atu au ki ā rātau i kaha mai ki nā tikana o te karakia.” TAUARAU, NĀTI RONO
“I didn’t expect to come away from the Ohu with a new family. Tūhoe is emerging, already seen as a leader in this. In some ways I know my new whānau better than my own.” “It was good to establish new relationships and business connections for our young people.” “THANK YOU TO THE HARD WORKERS…THE KŌRERO… THE COURAGE TO INVITE US INTO THIS RESPONSIBILITY TO CARRY THIS VISION FORWARD.”
“Ka hīkoi atu tētahi ki waho, kātahi ka tīraharaha haere, ohorere ahau ka mea atu au, he aha ai koe e pēna? Ko kōrero mai, ‘kātahi anō au ka kite i te karāehe.” TAUARAU, NĀTI RONO
“They want to come back.
We said, well you realise, if you have a look at the door on the
wharenui, there is no lock.” TĀTAIĀHAPE, NĀTI RAKA
“Aroha is everywhere here.
The biggest gift to us all - manaaki.”
“All my colleagues would come here for this…building relationships between Tūhoe and manuhiri, and between us as individuals.”
“Friendship improves happiness, and erodes misery.
We don’t need an M.O.U or a policy to move forward. We leave with an instinct that we are only
a phone call away. When you come up with an idea, let us know, let each other know.”
“I’M LOOKING
FORWARD TO HEARING
THE NEXT KĀRANGA.
I’LL BE BACK.”
“It would be fair to say that Papanui came back with his kete full. We
will definitely be implementing
changes in our build and the overall
development of Ngātapa Marae.”
Challenges
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BUILDING UNITY Today is a life of 170 years of colonisation ending. Now we focus on recovery - and that is in our hands. The disconnection has given much meaninglessness. People of the land need to find unity in what they are and can be as Tūhoe; for example, wanting sustainable buildings. Tūhoe is the boundary. Recovery is about better standard of living (eg wanting sustainable buildings), better standard of kinship, and better standard of kinship with the land. “Tūhoe, we are the boundary and we cannot turn our heads from that” Recovery will find momentum in unity. In two generations a vast diversity has happened, it sometimes takes work to identify the part that is Tūhoe. That part which binds them together. Education and progressive leadership are prized building blocks. During the stay I noted strengths anchored in humour and a fierce trust in their independence and philosophy as key ingredients to build the Tūhoe future on.
My overall impression was that Te Kura Whare in many ways was about “the art of the possible” - stretching the horizon of what is achievable. In the presentation it was described as “the butterfly effect”, a term that the manuhiri connected with. The speakers spoke with pride. Just as the building was designed to support air flow, as much did it provide air flow to people of the land. Hope. The building provided an air flow to Tūhoe identity, bringing a space to live it. Within that the importance of keeping benefits local, and acknowledging that change is hard, and that to make a difference you have to apply the change you want. Creating a thriving community of 100 people At the essence the kōrero revolved around creating reciprocity. The focus being the youth. In a local community that we visited about 1/3 would be under 18 years old. Total population around 300. The challenge of self-sufficiency in a remote area where grocery shopping is a once-a-month trip to the supermarket. The younger generation not wanting to grow food, it is the elders who grow the food. The challenge of education, boarding school is the highest
qualification across the population, and generally done as Te Reo immersion. It gets too expensive after that and the pool of youth too small to build economies of scale and scope for the next step. The challenge of bringing youth back to the local communities, with an experience of suicide of a youth and the wildfire of self-harm that can trigger. Opportunities gravitated on exchanges centred on possibilities for reciprocity between city and rural living, between the School of Nature and Dr. Google (internet). Opportunities also centred on being “small and nifty”. Smallness brings greatness in the ability to work directly together. Traditions can offer a strong common anchor. If you improve outcomes for adults, it will flow through to children. If you improve outcomes for children, it will flow through to adults. So, while hard to know which one to focus on first (adults or children), any enhancement will benefit all directly or indirectly. ENVIRONMENT POLICY ADVISOR, WELLINGTON
”
How will knowledge be held and shared, and how will the village be a centre of learning and teaching for young and old?
How to attract Tūhoe who don’t live here? The idea of a village as a ‘nest’ that allows people to come and go, to gradually transition back home.
“LOOK BACK TO FIND A WAY FORWARD. TO BANISH PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND, RETURN TO THE COMMONS.”
What form of land ownership will the village use? How will responsibilities, contributions, decision-making, fairness and disputes be understood and managed by the village?
“I want to say thank to you and your team for having us these past few days at Te Ohu. I felt very blessed to spend some
time at your place and with some of Tūhoe’s beautiful people. I definitely learned a lot – some of my thoughts and hunches
were confirmed and some were proven wildly off the mark!
The thing I would probably have spoken to if we’d had more
time at our closing session was the courage I saw in the people I met. Not just bravery to do hard and scary things. But
courage to do hard and scary things from a heart of wanting a more prosperous future for your people. Courage to have the
hard conversations that you must be having with each other
and to not always take the path of least resistance. Courage to
invite people like us into some of those conversations to give us a glimpse of the things you grapple with.”
How will the village be accessible and accommodate people who need care or have disabilities? How will visitors access and stay in the village?
“Te taha ki nā kai, me mātua mōhio koe ki te rerekē o te vegan, vegetarian, he aha hoki te Gluten Free; mai anō te boilup!” TĀTAIĀHAPE, NĀTI RAKA
“The vegetarians, vegans menu was hard because we were only told three days before, but we were lucky to have
Mereana. And at the end of the day we did get it done.” TE TŌTARA, TE UREWERA
OWNERSHIP DESTROYS BELONGING.
“Where are the tamariki in this process? I invite the opportunity to engage the young people.”
“FOOD IS AT CENTRE OF COMMUNITY.
MORE ATTENTION IS NEEDED TO THAT. EVERYTHING WE NEED IS HERE”
“Make the garden the new Pak’nSave. Move away from Pak’nSave to ‘Pick and Eat’, for a healthier world.”
AFTER TE OHU:
-hoe Next steps for Tu
Tūhoe Tribal Authorities and Tūhoe - Te Uru Taumatua will work with hapū to facilitate the concept design process for villages in the whārua, researching the issues within land; energy; justice and livelihood. The current TūhoeTribals Annual Plan has allocated resourcing for this work for up to eight hapū villages. We should consider that our rehearsal of LBC buildings – Te Kura Whare, Te Kura Whenua, Te Kura Tanata – has grown a level of capability in our tribal communities. We are now ready to move that to the hapū level through practical engagement in village reinvigoration. Through Te Ohu we learned that it will take a lot of different expertise to produce a village environment suitable for 21st and 22nd century Tūhoe hapū lifestyles. We will continue to connect with the wide network of likeminded people Te Ohu has created, with expertise in areas such as energy, water, waste, housing, gardening, food production and infrastructure. An easy relationship has been built between Tūhoe and these manuhiri. Many have shown interest in continuing the exchange. For some this may lead to offers of time, resource, interest and expertise to be considered for contribution to Tūhoe village reinvigoration. We will run an international design competition for a Living Building Challenge (LBC) house that will be beautiful and affordable. This competition will reach out to the best and brightest minds in the design community, including through our network of Te Ohu manuhiri and with the support of the International Living Futures Institute.
We are working with leaders of the Architecture, Building and Planning faculties of the University of Melbourne and Victoria University of Wellington to create a design studio with Tūhoe. This would bring groups of senior design students here for one week early in 2019 to work with Tūhoe hapū on specific village reinvigoration ideas, to develop concept designs and architectural plans. We will take Tūhoe ranatahi to visit, see and be inspired by projects and places that we learned about in Te Ohu - permaculture operations in the Wairarapa and Hawke’s Bay, eco-villages in West Auckland and Whanganui, waste recycling and repurposing in Raglan and Manukau.
MARAE TOOLKIT
What are our Questions?
1
Where is the shared open space, endowed with light, that forms the heart of the village? What existing centres are there to cluster gardens, buildings and other activities around?
2
What is the health of the soil, and where are the best places to establish food gardens for the village? From observations and analysis of soil samples, and observations of what has grown there.
3
What natural hazards are there in this place? Consider floods, wind and stability of the land, and the future impact of climate change – more extreme wind and rain events.
4
What is the health of the waterways and the forests near the village? From observations of tuna, koura, birds, bees and other fish and animals.
5
Will rubbish, pests, blackberry need to be cleared away so you can see into the land?
6
What is the future village capacity that you want to provide for?
7
What are the best sources of power generation for the village? From observations of energy sources: sunlight, wind, waterways. How will the village reduce its energy consumption and avoid burning fossil fuels?
8
What water sources will the village use, and how will wastewater be made clean? How will the village reduce its need to consume water?
9
What locally sourced natural products are there that could be used as building materials? What building materials should be avoided because of their negative impact on human or ecosystem health?
10 Where will the paths be put for walking and cycling? How can roads be designed to allow access to the village without cutting through the heart of it? How will the village reduce its need for cars and trucks? 11 How will village waste be avoided, recycled or reused? 12 What form of land ownership will the village use? 13 How will responsibilities, contributions, decision-making, fairness and disputes be understood and managed by the village? 14 How will art and beauty feature in the village - to celebrate culture, to delight and to inspire? 15 How will the village connect people to nature, place and climate? 16 How will knowledge be held and shared, and how will the village be a centre of learning and teaching for young and old? 17 How will the village be accessible and accommodate people who need care or have disabilities? 18 What places for recreation will the village have? 19 To reduce reliance on external money, what will be shared within the village, and between other villages/hapō? 20 What activities for livelihood (jobs) and enterprise (businesses) will happen in the village? 21 How will visitors access and stay in the village?
E ARA RĀ, E ARA RĀ. In February 2018 people came from NZ and overseas to Te Urewera to learn with Tūhoe and share ideas for hapū village reinvigoration. They brought expertise in infrastructure, housing and development together with a vision for vibrant, prosperous communities who care for each other and the land. From that event comes this sharing of ideas and discussion questions to help Tūhoe hapū find a unifying starting point for breathing life into our villages now and for the next 1000 years.
Tāmati Kruger Chairman, Tūhoe- Te Uru Taumatua
07 312 9659 tari@ngaituhoe.iwi.nz 12 Tūhoe Street, Tāneatua PO Box 56, Tāneatua 3163 TELEPHONE:
EMAIL:
www.ngaituhoe.iwi.nz