Matariki Planting Project
Since 2020 Greening Taupō has been collaborating with Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board to restore the banks of the Waikato River. Each year 2000-3000 trees have been planted with funding from Waikato Catchment Ecological Enhancement Trust and Ministry of Primary Industries One Billion Trees, with support from Taupō District Council and Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board.
This annual planting event has become one of the main Matariki events for Taupō. The rise of Matariki signals the Lunar New Year. It is a time to acknowledge the year past, celebrate the present, plan and prepare for the year ahead. Historically, the stars were closely tied to planting and harvesting. Reconnecting to the whenua and looking after te taiao (our environment) are great ways to celebrate Matariki. At this event we are give back to the local environment and improve our place for future generations. Participants write their goals or wishes for the new year and place these in the hole with a tree that they plant. thinking of Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the star associated with granting our wishes and realising our aspirations for the coming year.
From the first planting in 2020, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Whakarewa I Te Reo Ki Tuwharetoa has been involved. The first year, Kids Greening Taupō, Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board and Taupō District Council organised a workshop the day before the event. The tamariki from the kura helped unload the native plants from the truck and put them by the holes, they learnt about the traditional uses of the plants, they did a rubbish pick up, and they transplanted a lot of kōwhai seedlings found under a tree nearby. The next day, Saturday, the whole community showed up to help plant the trees.
After the first planting the tamariki from the kura regularly joined in with weeding and mulching sessions at the site with the Greening Taupō volunteers, known as Wicked Weeders. Kids Greening Taupō held their first ever ‘Mulching Day’ event at this site and students from schools all over Taupō came along and helped spread mulch to protect the trees.
The tamariki from the kura built traps and set a trapline in the area. You can watch a video about this that featured on Māori TV.
In 2021 we planted on a new site directly in front of the kura and neighboring kōhanga reo. This time the planting event was on a week day and we invited schools and ECE centes to bring tamariki along to join in. We were amazed when over 300 students and 200 adults came along. Taupō Primary school walked 100 students to the site and adopted it as their site too. The kōhanga tamariki joined in and worked with the tamariki from the kura. It was awesome tuakana-teina learning. We realised that in order for us to fully engage with the kura kaupapa and kōhanga reo to use this restoration site, we needed a coordinator who could speak te reo Māori. In Term 3 2021 our first Kairuruku reo Maōri, Tākoha Pitiroi, joined the team. Tākoha worked with the kura to use the restoration planting as a learning space, and every Tuesday they would do an activity there. They set tracking tunnels and checked the trapline, weeded, mulched, planted and did te reo Māori nature scavenger hunts from our website.
In Term 4 2021 we held our mulching event at this site again and had students come from all the surrounding schools and ECE centres again to look after the plants. We could see the tamariki from Taupō Kids Communty looking through the fence at us and decided that we needed to get them involved too. So, in 2022 we signed them up as a core centre and they also adopted the site to look after and use regularly for nature based learning.
In Term 1 2022 we held a ‘Show the Plants some Love’ event at the site. This event coincided with Valentine’s week. We asked students to show the dry weedy site some love. Despite the strict covid rules for events at the time, we managed to have over 150 students in their 7 school/ECE bubbles at different times show plants love by weeding, mulching and watering them. Taupō Premium Foods donated ice cream for the hard workers, TDC provided mulch and water, and Enviroschools supported us. It was exciting to have our Kairuruku reo Māori there to kōrero with the tamariki from kura kaupapa and kōhanga reo and for the first time over half of the participants at one of our events were speaking te reo Māori.
Our Matariki Event in 2022 was huge! Almost 400 students from 16 different schools/ECE centres booked in to come and businesses sent staff along too. We planted 2500 trees very quickly, all joined in to mulch the site, then we all enjoyed some hot kai thanks to Miraka Limited.
It has been awesome to watch this site grow, and as it does we have seen different local schools and ECE centres adopt it as a learning space. Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Whakarewa I Te Reo Ki Tuwharetoa originally took this project on, and quickly involved neighboring Te Puawaitanga Kohanga Reo. In 2022 Taupō Kids Community and Rickett St Community Playgroup got involved, with plantings on their doorstep that they can use for learning with their tamariki. Taupō Primary have walked down to all the events held there since 2021, and we can see how much the students are enjoying seeing their plants grow. Now, Taupō nui a Tia College has also started walking classes to the site to take on restoration work as part of many different subject areas, such as Outdoor Education, Science in the Community, Employment Skills, and a Kaitiaki class. This project is restoring native bush to our river banks and will hopefully bring back biodiversity, but it is also bringing a community together and involving them in a shared vision. It is becoming a place where our tamariki are able to do hands-on mahi as part of an authentic project, and while doing this work, learn about our unique biodiversity and the need to restore it.