Everyone together: how we're saving Puhinui Stream for the future

Saturday, 27 August 2022

For thousands of years, Te Puhinui wove its way through Tāmaki Makaurau, meandering its 12 kilometre stretch through south Auckland down to the Manukau Harbour.

From Manukau city to Manukau Harbour runs 12 kilometres of te Puhinui, weaving its way through Tāmaki Makaurau as it’s done for generations.

It’s historically been one of the most polluted waterways in the city, choked with rubbish from its urban and industrial surroundings.

The Puhinui stream was once a rich source of mana, kai and wai for locals. Now their descendents live in some of Auckland’s most neglected suburbs.

The stream used to flow smoothly down to the Manukau, feeding and nourishing communities on its way. Now, at least 1.5km has been concreted over, and a lot of it is highly eroded. Urban development today and in the future will only ramp up damaging run-off into the water.

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180402017 news photo: SUPPLIED/PANUKU DEVELOPMENT. An artist's impression of improvements to Puhinui Stream, Manukau under Transform Manukau plans.

Restoring the Puhinui stream to its glory days has been decades of work, and the latest step was taken in recent months with a partnership between mana whenua, Auckland Council and dozens of agencies and grassroots organisations to keep up the efforts for generations to come: Te Whakaoranga o te Puhinui.

The project has just been boosted by a contribution of $1.2 million over the next five years from the Milford Foundation to bring the vision to life.

Mana whenua are leading the effort, and say the stream’s physical and ecological health will restore hauora to those around it too.

Te Ākitai, Ngaati Tamaoho, and Ngaati Te Ata are members of an iwi group called Te Waiohua, southern tribes whose history in Tāmaki Makaurau goes back thousands of years.

Puhinui Stream flows through Wiri near the Druces Rd/Wiri Station Rd intersection.

Each had land and resources around the Puhinui until the Musket Wars and Land Wars. Government of the day confiscated land on the Manukau Harbour as punishment for what it considered rebellious activity by Māori.

It has meant that many young descendants of Te Waiohua iwi have been ripped from their heritage, or been denied their histories, unable to live, work and play on the land their tupuna called home.

Ngaati Tamaoho Chairperson Nick Maaka said part of the regeneration project will be to breathe new life into the taonga of his iwi’s whakapapa, capturing stories from tupuna and gifting them to the tamariki and rangatahi that don’t know them yet.

Some of the 200 supermarket shopping trolleys removed from the Puhinui Stream during a major clean-up in 2016.

“There is very little information out there about who we are as people of the southern tribes of Tāmaki,” he said.

“That’s the very essence of tino rangatira and mana motuhake, to be present and understand who you are and understand your connection to the area. For a long period in our history we’ve had a number of generations who were denied that opportunity.”

Each of the Te Waiohua iwi around the table agree on their fundamental role when it comes to the Puhinui: to be its kaitiaki, guardians - not for this generation, but for the ones to come.

A lot of the stream has been concreted, and doesn’t flow naturally anymore.

Te Akitai Chairperson Karen Wilson said when guardianship is at the centre, partnerships come easily.

“It’s one of the few times you’ll get an iwi perspective that’s not fraught,” she said.

“Most will agree if there is input required into a taonga, we should all do that together. That’s really the birth of this strategy.”

The strategy itself is complex, but so is restoring a body of water that survived thousands of years only to be lost to colonisation in about 100 years.

“No one iwi, no one person can do this pretty big job so I think that was something we all thought wow, we cracked it,” Wilson said.

“We’re all on the same page, we’ve just got different history and different priorities. But the water, the whenua, it relates to us all - that’s what’s drawn people together.”

Independent expert Alexanda Whitcombe (Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) is responsible for helping the myriad moving parts of the project come together.

He leads a working group of the south Auckland community groups and organisations to work on the stream, and to make sure the vision becomes a reality.

It’s taken years of working getting the foundations for the project right first, he said, and how the next stage of the mahi can begin.

Ultimately, everyone in south Auckland can be part of the regeneration journey, and to see themselves reflected in the landscape.

Bryce Marsden, chief executive MIlford Foundation, which has contributed $1.2 million to the project

“The vision is intended to motivate everyone to be part of a local solution in their backyard,” he said.

“It’s an opportunity for this work to be underpinned by indigenous knowledge that is local to the area that improves the wellbeing of the environment but also the wellbeing of the people.”

Te Whakaoranga o te Puhinui is fertile ground for hundreds of initiatives, which are needed to tackle the various challenges the stream faces.

Wilson said its problems can’t be solved with piecemeal solutions, but a whole of stream approach.

“From where it starts its journey to the Manukau, everyone along there has responsibility for its care,” she said.

“As it meanders its way down if it’s not being treated well at every juncture it doesn’t matter what somebody does at the top, the middle or near the end. It’s a holistic guardianship of the wai.”

One of those initiatives has been started by the Sustainable Business Network (SBN), who have linked up with local grassroots organisations to get rangatahi from south Auckland on the ground restoring the native bush.

The programme is not only about replanting, but about high level training opportunities that should lead to great jobs later.

Milford Foundation’s CEO, Bryce Marsden said the project resonated with the foundation for its potential to transform the community around the stream. That’s why it was backing it with funding, with the ultimate aim of seeing similar projects get up and running elsewhere.

“We know it takes a period of time to resolve issues, so we’re always into multi-year funding for the right opportunity. The roles we’ll be funding will be exponentially beneficial to the community,” Marsden said.

When the project works - and everyone is confident it will - Marsden hopes to see the same idea rolled out to other communities with similar problems to the Puhinui.

“The Puhinui was always concreted and rundown… To bring it back to life would just be magical,” he said.

“You didn’t even know it was a stream, it was just a drain with a culvert. So to convert that back and to have some real nature around the Puhinui and in south Auckland is only a good thing for the community - a place where we can walk, where kids can learn about plants and what nature means, that’s what we hope for.”

Wilson said ultimately the iwis’ relationships, dotted all around the Puhinui’s catchment, will be their strength.

No matter who someone is, if something they are doing could hurt the stream, they should be able to talk to them and work out a way to safeguard the water instead.

“For ourselves as Te Akitai, we use all our partnerships and relationships along there, commercial or otherwise, to say please join us. We’re trying to involve everyone, I think that’s the strength for us as iwi.”

“The whole project really is exciting, in the way that we’ve come together to help create a healthy environment,” Maaka said.

“We’re all under the same understanding that we’re kaitiaki which means preserving for the future generations not just the current generation.”