From Hills to Harbour: Restoring the Health of Tauranga Moana

Improving the health of Tauranga Harbour doesn’t start at the water’s edge. It starts much further inland, where rain falling on hills, farms, orchards and wetlands eventually makes its way into streams and rivers.

Project Parore is working to improve the freshwater flowing into Tauranga Harbour by restoring native habitats, reducing sediment runoff and protecting biodiversity across the catchments that feed it. The organisation is named after the native parore fish (also known as black snapper, luderick, blackfish, or black bream)which relies on healthy coastal habitats to thrive.

Now, BayTrust has committed $540,000 over three years to help continue and expand that work at a critical time, following the conclusion of a major central government funding programme.

Project Parore Chair Da vid Peters says environmental restoration is a long-term commitment that benefits both people and nature.

“Tauranga Harbour is th e fifth largest in New Zealand. It has been degraded by sediment and nutrients through urban development and intensification of horticulture and farming in the river catchments that feed it,” he says. “Environmental restoration is an intergenerational challenge. A productive and sustainable community needs healthy soil, clean waterways, and thriving habitats.”

Working With Nature

Project Parore’s restoration work now spans 12 catchments stretching from the Waiau catchment in the north to the Wairoa River in the south, helping landowners identify stream margins, former wetlands, steep unproductive land and other critical areas that can be restored to native forest or wetland.

The organisation grows more than 100,000 native plants each year in its ownnursery, carries out planting, and continues pest plant control for up to fiveyears to give each restoration project the best chance of success.

“We target landowners to identify critical source areas, stream margins, historical wetlands, and steep unproductive land, and work with them to retire that land from farming and restore it to native forest or wetlands,” David explains.

“By partnering with multiple funders, growing our own plants, and having our own skilled team, we make land retirement more affordable for farmers and orchardists.”

Project Parore’s work brings together landowners, volunteers, hapū, councils, schools, scientists, businesses and community groups, recognising that restoring freshwater and biodiversity requires a collective effort.

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Results That Are Beginning to Show

Over the past five years, Project Parore has planted more than 260,000 native plants and has exceeded many of its own restoration targets. The group won theinaugural NZ Landcare Trust Catchment Group Award for the Bay of Plenty regionat the Ballance Farm Environment Awards in 2022, and received national recognition through the 2024 Cawthron Institute Freshwater Champions Award.

The organisation is also beginning to see encouraging signs that those collective efforts are making a difference.

“Our work leads to cleaner freshwater and increased native biodiversity,” David says. “The area of seagrass in the harbour was in continual decline until 2022,when a survey showed the first increase in decades. Seagrass provides important habitat for the native parore fish, along with many other species, so its recovery is encouraging evidence that the wider ecosystem is beginning to improve.”

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Supporting the Next Chapter

The new $540,000 BayTrust grant comes as Project Parore’s five-year $1.75 million Ministry for the Environment Jobs for Nature programme draws to a close. The new funding provides certainty that the organisation can retain its skilled restoration team and continue building on the progress already achieved.

“We are very pleased to receive this grant as it will help us extend our reach and impact,” David says. “Our first priority is to sustain ourselves so that we can continue our work. Water and biodiversity do not respect lines drawn on maps. Our goal is to expand to cover all of the catchments that feed the Tauranga Harbour.”

Thanks to BayTrust, Project Parore aims to plant a further 210,000 native plants over the next three years, continue restoring waterways and wetlands, and work alongside landowners to protect more of the landscape feeding Tauranga Harbour.

Alongside its restoration work, Project Parore encourages community involvement throughits Renaturing Katikati volunteer programme. Activities include seed collection, nursery work, planting and protecting native habitat on public esplanades and reserves.

Ultimately, restoring the health of Tauranga Harbour isn’t just about improving waterways. It’s about ensuring future generations inherit a healthier, more resilient environment than the one we know today.

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