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TE RUNANGANUI O NGATI POROU
Image: Three generations share a passion for Te Kautuku. Rangi Raroa is pictured here with his daughter Dayna Raroa and mokopuna Awatere Richardson. In the background is te ngutu awa o Waiapu in Rangitukia.
In the Waiapu valley, a whanau is restoring the mauri of their whanau landblock as a legacy for future generations.
At first glance upon arrival, Te Kautuku Station looks like many other farms on the East Coast - cows in the paddock, farm dogs roaming, with quad bikes and side-by-sides ready to roll. But this whenua, perched on hills looking down towards te ngutu awa o Waiapu in Rangitukia, is no ordinary farm
WHANAU AFFAIR
Rangi Raroa is the station manager, kaitiaki, and one of many whanau who whakapapa to this whenua. His connection runs deep. “When I took over management, Dad said to me: ‘Boy, make sure you look after the land and don’t do anything that will jeopardise it.’ That’s always been the kaupapa for this place. It’s an inheritance - that’s the way I see it. It’s an inheritance from those older generations.” While Rangi holds the role of manager, Te Kautuku is very much a whanau affair. His wife Esther, along with his older daughters Renee and Dayna, and his teenage children Jayden and Aiesha, are all actively involved. Whether it’s project design, native planting, nursery development, or environmental monitoring, each brings their own strengths and aroha to the mahi. Rangi speaks about the next five years as a critical handover period. “My kids are the ones who’ll carry this forward,” he says. “This whenua is theirs to look after, just like it was for me.”
CREATION OF TE KAUTUKU
Te Kautuku spans over 900 hectares of collectively owned Maori land under an Ahu Whenua Trust. “Te Kautuku was made up of a whole lot of different land holdings,” says Rangi, “until the government passed legislation that amalgamated all those small holdings into bigger blocks of land. And from that point, Te Kautuku was formed.”
Te Kautuku was part of a Maori Affairs development scheme, where the government would develop, stock, and manage the land, recover the costs over 30 years, and then return it as a functioning farm. However after eight years Rangi says the government pulled out. “They said it was uneconomic,” Rangi recalls. “But it was the Maori Affairs scheme that had built up a million-dollar debt on our land. The owners had to fight to get that wiped. “ It was at this point the wider whanau established the Te Kautuku Ahu Whenua Trust. “The owners appointed me as manager,” Rangi says, “and I’m still here to this day.”
TRANSITION TOWARD REGENERATION
For decades Te Kautuku operated as a sheep and beef station, however in recent times, the land use of the whenua has gradually shifted toward regeneration. “We continued with pastoral farming for a number of years,” Rangi says, “but found it more and more difficult to carry on. We stopped stocking sheep quite a while back, just due to the uneconomic nature of it. The only stock we’ve got on here at the moment is cattle.”
Driving across the farm, Rangi points toward a stand of tall poplars, planted decades ago, now standing tall. “We didn’t go with pine,” he says, “we wanted something that gave back. With poplar, you still get pasture underneath them, they’re good for erosion, good for shade, and when there’s drought, the cows eat the leaves off the lower branches. They give back in lots of ways.”
More than half the farm has now been retired for regeneration, with the longer term aim for at least 85 percent of the whenua is to be restored to its natural habitat. To achieve this Te Kautuku are developing other projects such as a cultural trail restoration, pest control, nursery development, and environmental monitoring. In order to do this, Te Kautuku has gathered support from other organisations to help bring their vision to life.
“We’ve got six different projects on Te Kautuku,” says Rangi. “Through Renee’s efforts we are working with Toha, and East Coast Exchange, where we’ve managed to get some funding to help us with these projects. We are also working with government agencies such as AgResearch and other. With the data we’re collecting, it could help others who want to do something similar.”
Rangi’s daughter, Renee Raroa works closely with these partnerships that have opened the door to new ways of doing things like using eDNA testing to check on the health of the waterways and the whenua, or trialling MAHI tokens to recognise the work happening on the whenua and bring in new revenue streams from data markets.
“We’re looking at partnerships with entities who are open to understanding the differences for whenua Maori, and who back the aspirations of whanau, hapu, and community”, says Renee. “With the right support in place, Te Kautuku is becoming an example of what’s possible when you back Indigenous-led ideas with the right tools and tautoko.”
TAPERENUI-A-WHATONGA
Te Kautuku is also home to the Paikea Trail, the track winds through the whenua and follows the footsteps of the founding ancestor, Paikea, “As the legend goes”, Rangi explains, “he walked along the beach, up over the hills, and that’s when he met Huturangi bathing. Their union was the beginning of Ngati Porou. It all started here at Te Kautuku. That’s just what’s been passed down from my father to me, and from those who lived in the area.”
The trail leads to the site of Taperenui a-Whatonga, known as the first whare wananga in the rohe. The site holds deep cultural and historical significance for the whanau and the wider Ngati Porou community. Taperenui-a-Whatonga is being preserved and part of Te Kautuku’s commitment to restoring ancestral knowledge.
“These are the places that shaped who we are,” says Rangi about the whenua on Te Kautuku. “Our job is to protect them, so our mokopuna can still walk them. There’s history in every ridge and valley here. This is our origin point, my father told me the stories, and his father told him.”
A LIVING MODEL
At a time when climate change, erosion, and economic pressures weigh heavily on whenua Maori, Te Kautuku stands as a living model for what’s possible when science meets Matauranga Maori.
“We’re taking a mosaic approach,” says Renee. “It’s about bringing together different land uses - regeneration, cultural spaces, enterprise, in a way that fits our whakapapa and supports our whanau to thrive here. It’s not about one solution — it’s about weaving together many approaches that fit our place, our people, our whakapapa.
Whakapapa is ultimately what drives the regeneration of Te Kautuku. “It’s not just about bringing back the ngahere,” says Rangi. “It’s about bringing our people back with it.”
“Our vision is for whanau to return,” says Renee. “Not just to visit, but to live, to thrive, to build a future here. It’s not fast work, but it’s meaningful and it’s ours.”
Find out more about the regeneration mahi at Te Kautuku Station Toha Network and East Coast Exchange Pilot :
