Now into their sixth year, camp ground manager, Wayne Johnstone and his wife, Tupou, say they have had a long, hot and dry summer.

As is the situation for many in Northland, the camp ground has had issues with water, but this was more due to issues with their own bore supply rather than lack of rain.  At the start of summer Wayne said that they were having ongoing issues with their bore, and had to really manage its use at the camp ground. 

“We would like to thank the Tuparehuia marae committee for allowing us to access their water bore to top up the camp ground tanks while we were having our issues.  We were very grateful for their support.”

“The issue with our bore is now resolved as we were fortunate to be able to get a contractor out right on Christmas, as campers were starting to arrive.  We were very thankful that we were able to get it sorted in time, and is now no longer an issue for us.”

The camp ground has been full all summer, which meant the beaches and surrounding areas were busy with people, bubbling like kahawai schooling on top of the water, all of who were lapping up the long hot summer days.

Wayne says, “This year we approached a planning and roading team at Whangarei District Council to seek permission to move our front boundary fence to increase our capacity.”

Prior to the holiday period an application was submitted to extend the current front boundary out to the main road, keeping within two meters from the road.  This meant the camp had nearly 1,000m2 extra capacity, with an availability of approximately 30 additional camp sites.

​Two weeks after submitting the application, it came back approved.

At first there was some hesitation from some campers being close to the road and potential noise, but feedback from campers was that they enjoyed the spots as they had the benefit of the shade of the trees along where the previous fence line once was.  With the hot summer, campers loved this, while others baked in the beach front sun.  So much so, that when offered beach front positions when they became available, the campers wanted to stay where they were.
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A highlight of the summer, and new to the camp ground this year, was the “Middle Rock Takeaways” food caravan.  The takeaway caravan was a hit with campers as well as locals, and was very busy all summer.  With a recent Council graded “A Licence”, the caravan provided burgers, fish and chips, and hot dogs, often almost selling out on a daily basis and needing to go to town for more supplies, which was a sign of how popular it was

After a successful trial over summer, Wayne says that Middle Rock Takeaways will continue to operate during Easter and other long weekend holidays, as well as over this year’s summer season.
Large groups came to Bland Bay over summer, with one Auckland Church group of over 40 people traveling north to stay, with feedback received that they just loved their time at the camp ground and will be back.

Wayne says, “It has been a very good summer for the camp, with everyone that has stayed generally being well behaved and enjoying themselves thoroughly.”

“We still have a few things to work on, such as our recycling which we are trying to work with the Council on, and there is always ongoing maintenance to be done.”

“We still have some busy times and weekends ahead of us with Easter already looking like we will be busy.  We are also getting a lot of people still coming to stay with us who like to come outside of our peak holiday times, so we are still ticking along nicely.”
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“Then after Easter, we hope to get a bit of a break for ourselves which we look forward to each year.”

Towards the end of 2019, a group from the small community of Aotea, Great Barrier Island (“David”) were successful in appealing the Environment Protection Authority’s decision to grant Coastal Resources Limited (“Goliath”) permission to increase the amount of sediment it dumped off Aotea, Great Barrier Island.

The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) gave permission to Coast Resources Limited (CRL) to increase its sediment dumping from 50,000 cubic metres to 250,000 cubic metres annually for 35 years, just 25 km of the east coast of Aotea, Great Barrier Island. 

In its determination, the High Court found that the EPA erred in approving the CRL application and in its judgement ordered the matter be referred back to EPA for reconsideration. The High Court also said that the EPA needed to take into consideration the advice of its Māori Advisory Committee for "meaningful" engagement with local iwi authorities and groups that may be affected by CRL's application.

Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea uri and Protect Aotea representative, Kelly Klink, welcomed the High Court decision blocking an increase in the amount of dredging waste from Auckland that can be dumped off Aotea, Great Barrier Island.

Kelly says, “For the tangata whenua and local community, desecration of our environment is not acceptable. As an island community, who live in and on the sea, we believe the time has come for archaic practices, such as marine sludge dumping, to come to an end. We therefore welcome this decision, which we see as a step forward to better marine environmental protection.”

“The Crown must reconsider CRL’s application in light of its obligation to actively engage with the local community. Either way, Protect Aotea will be ready to speak on behalf of our community and for our unique and special home.”

“We would like to thank the tangata whenua and local community for their support, as well as all others who have contributed to our campaign. We would also like to, in particular, dedicate this decision to Uncle Serb, our beloved kaumātua who sadly passed away at the end of last year.”
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Kelly says that they they will continue to represent the interests of the island home and speak up against dated environmental practices. As the group prepare for their next steps in this case, they are now also turning their attention to challenging CRL’s existing consent to dump 50,000 cubic meters per annum of marine sludge off the coast of Aotea as well as the Ports of Auckland’s recent consent to dump marine dredging near Reponga, Cuvier Island.

“Tāngata Nunui, Tāngata Nohinohi – Humans Big and Small” is a children’s book written by Howard Reti of Whangaruru.

It’s a book that has been written specifically to help educate children and their parents on kaimoana gathering in an environmentally and culturally friendly way.
 
Howard Reti spent many hours interviewing Ngātiwai kaumātua and undertook research in his community to understand more about the traditional ways of gathering kaimoana such like our tupuna (ancestors) did in years gone by, and how many of our people still practice this today.
So Howard decided he wanted to make a children’s book all about it!

It was always Howard’s vision to have a book written both in Māori and English, so he asked his Aunty Meri Barber to join his team to complete the translations into Te Reo Māori.  Kawiti Waetford also assisted with translations.
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Meri Barber said in her work in translating the book, “It was always important to me that Ngātiwai kupu and mita were prominent in my translation work.  Some of the kupu may at times seem very simple, but these words are tuturu to Ngātiwai, and that was the most important thing.”

Dorothy Waetford and Tepara Jennings from Matapouri were brought into the team to bring Howard’s story to life through their illustrations. 
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Howard says, “Dorothy and Tepara have done a great job in telling my story through their illustrations, and I think it is wonderful that we have people with their talent in Ngātiwai.”

“When I interviewed my elders in researching for this book, there were many things I learnt.  One example was one kaumātua who talked of being thrown in the water to gather kaimoana.  It may seem harsh, but this was how some were taught how to swim, the old way, but this helped them to learn very quickly how to swim to float and how to swim to stay alive.  This all helped them become experts in kaimoana gathering.”

“Through this process we learnt a lot more than just making this book.  It is my hope that through this book the things we learnt can also get into the hearts and minds of our mokopuna and their parents.”
 
“The main kaupapa of the book is that we are all taught when we are young about the tikanga of going to collect pipi.  When I went around interviewing people for my research for this book, in most cases they could remember three rules or tikanga when collecting pipi. But Howard found that there are lots of different tikanga around collecting pipi, and included ten of them in his book.

These tikanga relate specifically to tikanga of collecting kaimoana, but also in essence is the tikanga of being a kaitiaki.

Howard calls these “Mother Nature’s Ten Golden Rules” for gathering kaimoana.

Howard says, “We are encouraging schools and communities to find out and understand what their tikanga is or Golden Rules for collecting kaimoana in their area, and I think through this we can all educate ourselves together.

“None of us had written a book before, and none of us had illustrated a book before.  It was done by us in Ngātiwai, and we just had a go.”
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“I would like to acknowledge the people of Ngātiwai and the Ngātiwai Trust Board.  I would also like to acknowledge Dorothy Waetford, Tepara Jennings, Kawiti Waetford and my Aunty Meri Barber and all those who helped on this journey.  I acknowledge the Ministry for Primary Industries for their support in my research into making this book.”
 
To purchase a copy of this fantastic book contact Howard Reti: humansbigandsmall@gmail.com

​A group from the small community of Aotea Great Barrier Island – made up of Kaumātua, whānau and tamariki – Māori, Pākeha and Tauiwi are expecting a decision soon from the High Court after recently taking on corporate giants Coastal Resources Ltd and the governmental agency - Environmental Protection Authority.
 
Earlier this year the residents of Aotea submitted to the High Court and were successful in being awarded the right to appeal in the Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) decision to grant Coastal Resources Ltd (CRL) permission to increase the amount of sediment it dumps from 50,000 cubic metres to 250,000 cubic metres annually for 35 years, just 25 km of the east coast of Aotea, Great Barrier Island. 

Launched at Paratene Te Manu Marae in Ngunguru in July, Te Waka Reo is the latest reo project of the Ngātiwai Trust Board’s Te Reo Māori strategy.
 
Te Waka Reo is about encouraging the use of te reo and the speaking of it. A strong component of the programme is about encouraging participants to learn waiata and moteatea that were commonly heard in the times of our tūpuna, but not so commonly heard today.

​Te Whānau ā Rangiwhakaahu know they can’t slow down the rate of change as they are seeing Tourism explode in their rohe. They also know first-hand the impact tourism can have on the whenua and moana having earlier this year imposed a rahui tapu over their taonga Rangitapu (The Headland) and Te Wai O Taniwha (the Mermaid Pools).