Mauri Compass
Mauri Compass
We recently held a whānau wānanga to help establish tangata whenua connectedness to our takutai mōana and historic v’s current state abundance, health and well-being of our coastal taonga species and mahinga kai. The information and feedback received during this wānanga will feed into our marine mauri compass report which Ian and Riaki Ruru are working on for us.
The Wānanga was very informative with good robust discussion around the many issues facing our marine environment as well sharing stories and good times with our whānau who have spent time in our marine environment practicing our traditional mahinga kai and other cultural activities.
From this wānanga came a strong desire amongst our whānau to hold a mahinga kai tikanga workshop to discuss Ngāti Mutunga tikanga when gathering kai. This would include high-level basics such as appropriate karakia, throwing the first fish back and those kinds of practices that some of our younger whānau and/or rangatahi may not have picked up along the way. And for those who did not grow up here but have made the journey back to their Mutungatanga.
I look forward to working on this report with Ian and Riaki and sharing it with our whānau.
Mauri compass
We have completed Mauri Compass surveys across our three largest catchments for this season. Water levels are lower than our past surveys but there was still enough flow to keep our taonga species safe and happy at the time of our surveys. We caught a record-breaking 5kg tuna in Mimitangiatua this year, breaking last years record by 1.2kg. Catches were not quite as many but still plenty of fit and healthy looking tuna caught across all sites. We dissected Tuna from Mimitangiatua and Urenui this year and both looked to be healthy and thriving. We didn’t take one from Onaero as we had TODD representatives with us to show them our freshwater monitoring program which is largely funded by them. They really enjoyed their day with us and showed great interest in our mahi.
