Whitirere - Predator Free Waiohine Gorge

We are a whānau, hapū of Wairarapa that are primarily based down Waiohine Gorge for our kaupapa. We are working hard to reestablish our cultural practices and identity as Ngāti Kahukuraawhitia. All of our kaupapa is about providing opportunities for whānau to reconnect to our ancestral whenua.

This project is about focusing on how we kia whitirere nga tāonga species, ensuring our tāonga species are flourishing. To enable us to protect our native manu, ika and other species we need to ensure we remove the prolific numbers of predators that put them at risk.

We are extending our skillsets as a whānau, hapū to ensure our approach to kia whitirere (to flourish) our taonga species is through our tikanga and mātauranga. We want to focus on doing hands on trapping regularly, building up relationships and extending our trapping within the community we live - to not only this gorge, but across our rohe. We do not utilise poisons unless we are comfortable with the research through our mātauranga that we have the right information to ensure it does not impact the wider ecosystem and will not impact our people and community.

The use of Open Collective is the ability to share our journey with those who wish to contribute financially. In this we will be able to transparently show our financial spend and provide updates to what we're doing on the ground.