A Wildlife Survey and Enhancement options document prepared by Hans Rook of the Department of Conservation in 2016 described the wetland as approximately 4.5km long and that it was cut off from the Waipaoa River as part of the Flooding Prevention Scheme in the 1960s, leaving behind an oxbow-shaped wetland.
The reserve is now home to more than 20 species of flora and fauna including the rare Australasian bittern (matuku). Fewer than 1000 adult birds remain in New Zealand and Australian wild spaces.
To safeguard the interests of the wetland, the trust received funding from Te Rea (Tairāwhiti Agroecology Recovery Programme) and employed four workers, with plans to regenerate their whenua through indigenous knowledge and create a sustainable industry for their whānau. The initiative is known as Maungarongo o Te Kooti Rikirangi Restoration Project.
Although the Te Rea funding ran out last year, the trust intends to continue the project while operating with limited resources — little to no funding and the lack of an effective workforce.
“We are trying our best to apply for more funding but what we also want is for the public to realise that we have a hidden gem in our region and we need their support,” Ms Hotene said.
For the tangata whenua, the wetlands were like the lungs of the Earth.
“Imagine trying to live with no lungs.”
Mr Rook said more than 90 percent of Aotearoa's wetlands have been drained and destroyed, and of the few remaining, many were still threatened by drainage and modification.
“Matawhero needs to be carefully managed in order to retain and enhance the values of the wetland,” he said.
Ms Hotene said besides getting rid of exotic and invasive trees, the duo have also been conducting pest control measures once a fortnight.
“We have been targeting possums, rats and stoats. Since we are surrounded with orchards, pests are frequent visitors. The fact that we are also right next to the SPCA, we get a lot of people who just dump their cats. We often see them running through our ngahere (forest) and we know that their presence is bad news for our native species,” she said.
Her cousin Amber Hiroti joined Ms Hotene to ecosource seeds from the wetland to grow trees.
“What we do is collect a lot of seeds from where we have planted (ecosource), such as karaka and kawakawa — which fruit once a year — and karamu.
“Then we work on them in our nursery, grow our native trees, repotting, watering, releasing them, spraying our pathways and eradicating willows and weeds,” she said.
Ms Hiroti said monthly water monitoring was carried out to check the wetland for clarity, presence of invertebrates, water levels and pH, to better understand its health.
Trustee Roxanne Smith said the plan was to make the reserve a world-class indigenous wetland that would help provide a source of inspiration and wellbeing for the wider community.
“We have spent the best part of last year training the small staff we have, under the Te Rea initiative, when it was active.
“Besides the need for more public participation in the project, we also require people with specialist skills to help us identify and address issues.”
She said with proper funding, the trust could employ experts who would speed up the restoration process.
Gisborne District Council has given the trust $10,000 to employ an arborist and to help clear weeds and exotics.
Ms Smith said the trust would need $300,000 for employees and resources.
DoC biodiverisity ranger Jamie Quirk said the department had previously provided the trust with advice and would continue to do so if requested.
Ms Smith said the trust was grateful for DoC's support.
“But what's the point of having guidance when we don't even have the workforce to back it up?”
The overall aspiration of Nga Uri for Te Maungarongo was restoring the taonga in a “contemporary and wider community context”.
Ms Smith said the key to the vision was the development of the ecological values of the current lake and wetland area, which included conducting a detailed assessment of the geophysical environment and water quality.
The trust had approached environmental scientist Murry Palmer to produce a hydrology report back in 2017.
Mr Palmer said the report provided a strong background to funding the project, and looked at the wetland's hydrology, such as its connection to the Waipaoa River and the wider environment.
“We could not identify the relationship of water flow between the wetland, the Waipaoa River and the Te Hapara Sand Aquifer,” he said.
“But it is important to understand these relationships because, say, having no water in the river could directly affect the water flow in the wetlands.”
The report suggested the possibility that the Makauri and the Te Hapara Sand aquifers were overlapping around the Matewhero wetland area.
“It would take a brave man to say that the water came from one or the other.”
Such a finding would be crucial, he said, since aquifers — bodies of rock/sediment that hold ground water — serve an important role as a source of fresh water and irrigation.
“We are still in the process of understanding how the interaction works.”
Mr Palmer said wetlands act as the “kidneys of the landscape”, filtering and capturing sediment, and helping settle it to the bed of the wetland. The plants use these nutrients to grow, supporting the whole ecosystem.
They also act like sponges, he said. Some wetlands, particularly those on floodplains and in coastal areas, help control floods by storing excess water during storms.
Mr Palmer said it was his understanding that wetlands, especially the one at Matawhero, had both a traditional and contemporary value.
“Traditional values would include the kai it provides for birds and fish that live on it. The wetlands also provide an anaerobic environment that is helpful for growing trees,” he said.
“Contemporary values” refer to the biodiversity of the wetlands, their role in mediating water flow and limiting erosion.
“What will kill the wetland and its values is excessive allocation of water from the area.”
If there was a big transfer from grapes to kiwifruit, that would increase water takes, which would definitely suck the water from the aquifer and the wetland, he said.
“It is crucial to have an understanding of your neighbours.”
Ms Hotene said the trust already had established a good relationship with a number of neighbours and hoped to have the support of all of them.
“It's our dream to secure more funding this year, not only to put our family members into full-time employment, but also to employ members of the public to help and work around the wetland. That's our ultimate goal.”
