Tāwhaki – connecting the whenua with the skies

David Perenara-O’Connell is a māngai (representative) for Tāwhaki Joint Venture. Mark Rocket is the CEO of Kea Aerospace. Both are involved with Tāwhaki – the restoration of Kaitōrete – a narrow stretch of land between Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) and the Pacific Ocean.

Questions for discussion: 

• How did Tāwhaki get its name?

• Previous land uses at Kaitōrete have changed the landscape and affected the biodiversity of the area. How do you think the aerospace industry might avoid these issues?

• David says the project’s opportunities are almost limitless. What do you think he means by this?

Transcript

David Perenara-O’Connell

Māngai, Tāwhaki Joint Venture

Tāwhaki is a joint venture between two hapū. Taumutu, Ngāi Te Rua Hikihiki where I come from, and Ngāti Makō from Wairua at Little River and the New Zealand Government. It’s a project to restore Kaitōrete as an amazing landscape and whenua, and it’s also an opportunity to develop aerospace opportunities for New Zealand.

Mark Rocket

Chief Executive Officer, Kea Aerospace Founder and President, Aerospace Christchurch

It’s really exciting working with Tāwhaki in the local rūnanga at Kaitōrete Spit. We’ve begun test flights out there, and it’s going to provide a whole bunch of opportunities for the future.

David Perenara-O’Connell

The name Tāwhaki comes from our hapū connections with Kaitōrete. We needed a name that connected the whenua with the skies in the sense of Kaitōrete and the aerospace opportunity.

So we drew on our pūrākau, our story of Tuna, where Tāwhaki, one of our demi-gods, climbs into the heavens. And during his journey, he meets Tuna in the highest of heavens, up there next to Rehua, the gods associated with the Sun. And he tells Tuna about the bountiful resources of the Earth and that it’s a much more conducive environment to an eel to live in.

Tuna descends to the Earth on the advice of Tāwhaki. Then Māui and his people discover Tuna being an obstruction to them and so they go about creating a hīnaki or an eel trap to catch Tuna. And they gather the Muehlenbeckia astonii – the tororaro – found on Kaitōrete and weave this hīnaki that ultimately catches Tuna, and then they cut him up and it creates the kōriro, or the conger eel in the sea, and the varieties of tuna that you find in freshwater and the piharau or the lamprey.

Kaitōrete has had a lot of different land uses over the years, and it was really changing that landscape and having an effect on the biodiversity on the spit. The project then has had that focus of how can we restore the whenua? But then alternative opportunities that can generate prosperity for not only our communities but also contribute to greater Christchurch.

The opportunities are almost limitless, really, when you think about land and sky and everything in between.

Right now, there are pest control projects getting under way – so our rangatahi that are really interested in pursuing careers in environmental management or research – there’s those, right through to what we’re progressively learning more about in the sense of the aerospace industry – so careers associated with rockets and physics and all of those sort of things.

So if this project enables tamariki and rangatahi to think more broadly beyond the current horizon, then we’ve done a good job of setting them on a new pathway.

Acknowledgements

David Perenara-O’Connell, Tāwhaki Joint Venture Mark Rocket, Kea Aerospace Tāwhaki collaborator logos, drone shots of Lake Waihora and Kaitōrete Spit, Muehlenbeckia astonii and launch of Tāwhaki at Kaitōrete Spit, courtesy of Tāwhaki Joint Venture Aerial still of Kaitōrete Spit, Phillip Capper, CC BY 2.0 Kea Atmos prototype in flight, Kea Aerospace Hinaki (Maori wicker eel trap), Whanganui River area. McDonald, James Ingram, 1865–1935: Photographs. Ref: PA1-q-257-72-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photograph of a wicker fishing trap or pot (hinaki). McDonald, James Ingram, 1865-1935: Photographs. Ref: PA1-q-257-73-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand Conger eel, M. Rutherford, CC BY 4.0 Longfin eels, from Meet the Locals: Tuna, Department of Conservation, CC BY 3.0 Pacific lamprey (filmed in USA), Ralph Lampman, CC BY 3.0 ARCAS rocket pad launch, 1963, RNZAF, Crown copyright, CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ The new culvert at Lake Ellesmere 1909, built by Mr Pannet, Selwyn Library, CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ Canterbury gecko, from Meet the Locals: Kaitōrete Lizards, Department of Conservation, CC BY 3.0 Conservation work at Lake Waihora, from Whakaora Te Ahuriri, A Wetland for Te Waihora, Environment Canterbury