Magic Through Value Alignment

Akohia te tikanga, kia ako. Akohia te pono, kia mārama. Akohia te pūrākau, kia maumahara e whakairo te rawatia i te ngākau, ā, kia tū anō.

When I made the decision to relaunch Tū Mai Te Toki, the driver wasn’t financial gain. It was a desire to dedicate myself to kaupapa I believed in deeply.

Over the years, I’ve always been drawn to working on environmental kaupapa. During my time at Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, I had the privilege of starting out as a communications advisor in the pest eradication programme, Korehāhā Whakahau.

Later, when I assumed responsibility for organisation-wide communications, it was only natural to lend my skills to the annual kuia harvest. This harvest is a cultural practice that Ngāti Awa revived in 2012, after a long-standing rāhui had prohibited the taking of manu kuia for more than 50 years.

After completing the 2023 harvest season, I had some reflections of my own and was keen to kōrero further with ngā pou o te kohi manu.

The pou of the kuia harvest – ngā Pounanao o Ngāti Awa – are a collective of Ngāti Awa practitioners. They are hunters, divers, and gatherers. They’re the ones out the back of the kitchen who somehow know everyone, even if all they give you is a quick eyebrow raise. The ones who can ring a mate and sort a pig, a sack of kina, a tractor, mānuka for your smoker, rocks for your hāngī – or whatever else you might need.

Ngā ringa raupā. Ngā kaihaukai. Ngā kaitiaki.

Part of the vision for reinvigorating the cultural harvest of manu kuia within Ngāti Awa was to create an ecosystem among the ahi kā of our marae. Not only would this support the annual harvest and ensure rangatahi Ngāti Awa had the opportunity to participate, but it would also strengthen the relationships between marae kitchens, ensuring kotahitanga and whanaungatanga thrive within our iwi.

So, when the six pou came together alongside Rapata Kopae to plan the 2024 harvest, they spoke about kaitiakitanga and creating opportunities for young kaitiaki to continue caring for ngā manu kuia and Motutohorā – just as they had.

Rapata, a long-time environmental practitioner who now sits on the Rūnanga board, isn’t one to talk for too long. So eventually, he encouraged the group to walk.

His first instruction was to build a strategy that encapsulated the conversation we’d just had, so it could be presented to Te Tapatoru a Toi, the co-management committee responsible for Motutohorā and two other reserves in the Ngāti Awa rohe. It’s also another committee of which Rapata is a member. He’s a stalwart - like we said.

Heoi, as a rōpū, we pulled together a strategy and presented it to Tapatoru within two weeks of our hui. From there, we consolidated under the name Te Rōpū Pounanao, with Rapata as our Pou Tuahu to guide us.

Our goal remains simple: to deepen the collective Ngāti Awa relationship with ngā manu kuia, Motutohorā, and te taiao through kaitiakitanga. You can read more about this in the Pounanao strategic document.

We’re inspired by the work of those before us, and by the impact research had on reviving the cultural practice of harvesting manu kuia in 2012.

Our strategy outlines several pathways to achieving our vision – one of which is supporting ongoing research. Nā reira, we reached out to our friends at Manaaki Whenua, who were instrumental in the research that helped justify lifting the rāhui in 2012.

Together with Manaaki Whenua, Te Rōpū Pounanao has been working on a plan for a cross-cultural monitoring programme. We still have a few people to convince within the iwi – as taking a punt on a fledgling rōpū is never simple.

But for me, Te Rōpū Pounanao was a kaupapa that was easy to support. It aligns with my values and carries the added feeling of being divinely guided. And although there’s no financial benefit for me, it has already – even in these early days – been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.

We’ve still got a little way to go to formalise Te Rōpū Pounanao and its strategic pathways. No doubt, there will be another blog post to further explain the kaupapa. But for now, I just wanted to offer this example of how being value-aligned is far more important to me – and to Tū Mai Te Toki – than being lucrative.

And, if you would like to know a little bit more about the kaupapa and how I am helping through Tū Mai Te Toki Communications then please check out these videos that we made for the Pounanao Tik Tok.