Te Whakamaru o Horohoro

Tēnā koutou

This panui is to advise you about progress we are making on Te Whakamaru o Horohoro – our predator free maunga project.

Ngāti Kea Ngāti Tuara has a vision of creating a sanctuary – restoring the forest and birdsong of Horohoro maunga, Te Horohoroinga o ngā ringa o Kahumatamomoe.  Since 2018 we have been working towards restoring and protecting the forest, which has included trapping and bait station projects, as well as undertaking predator monitoring.  All of this work showed we had high numbers of possums, rodents (rats and mice) and mustelids (ferrets and stoats) on Horohoro maunga.  Our goal is to reduce the numbers of these pests to allow our native forest to regenerate and our native birds to flourish.

During this work we also discovered that there is a population of long-tailed bats (pekapeka) on the maunga.  Pekapeka are very rare so this has been an exciting find and has motivated us to work harder to protect this taonga species.

Over the last year we have secured funding through DOC Jobs for Nature and the Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust. We have developed a Biodiversity Action Plan and have begun a large pest control project on Horohoro maunga with our first field worker started work in early March.

This panui is to advise you that we will have people working on Horohoro maunga doing predator control and other environmental work for the foreseeable future.  We hope that you are starting to see the increased forest growth and hear the wonderful sounds of the forest.

If you have any queries please contact our Environment Manager, Kataraina George, on Kataraina@ngatikeangatituara.com

Heoi anō, nā

Robyn Bargh

Chair, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Kearoa Ngāti Tuara