The Upper Waipoua Kaitiaki group came together in 2018. It is a small but enthusiastic group of farmers and small block owners who aim to work together to enhance the biodiversity and the community. A focus for the group is trips to explore the river and local area so that they can come together as a community, celebrate successes, and share learnings. This has provided a purpose and encouragement for landowners to fence and plant the Waipoua River, undertake pest control, and monitor the river.
Mountains to Sea Wellington was invited by the group to collaborate with Joe Potangaroa from Potangaroa Education. The aim was to explore the history of the Upper Waipoua, explore water quality, and reconnect as a group with what they want to see around the river.
The day started out with whakawhanaungatanga to reconnect, and connect with the Mikimiki Road residents who have been invited to join the group.
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We then traveled across Riverside Farm to the site of the original homestead. Here we explored the parallel narratives of tangata whenua of Te Kauru (head of the valley) and the Campbell family who have farmed in the area for over 150 years. Joe Potangaroa is a local story teller who has been working to share local Māori history in the Wairarapa. Joe shared stories of local place names and people as well as sharing pūrakau of the local taniwha. Gill Murray (nee Campbell) spoke to the stories of her whānau in the valley and the interactions with tangata whenua and Māori who walked over from Ōtaki.
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Next we went to the Waipoua River to explore the biodiversity and the quality of the water. Here we found that there were many bullies and the water was nice and cool, despite the drought conditions in the Wairarapa. There was quite a lot of algae indicative of lower, warmer and high nutrient waters which prompted a discussion about what the community wants to see from their waterway. The community group spoke to the work they are all doing individually and collectively to restore the river and how they aim to restore the river to a point where their mokopuna will be able to swim in the river and where the biodiversity will flourish.
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