Re-cloaking Te Raukūmara for Future Generations

The Raukūmara is the last greatmountain-to-sea native forest in the North Island.

Stretching across approximately 250,000 hectares from the eastern Bay of Plenty into Tairāwhiti, it is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant remaining forest landscapes and the setting for one of the world’s largest Indigenous-led ecological restoration programmes.

Not long ago, much of it had fallen silent.

The canopy and forest floor were thinningafter decades of browsing by possums, deer, goats and other introduced animals. Native birds were disappearing. Traditional weaving and rongoā plants were struggling to survive. The natural balance of the forest was fundamentally altered.

When Raukūmara Pae Maunga (RPM), an iwi-led charitable trust established by Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Porou, began taking kaumātua back into places they had known as children, what they found was confronting. Others joined hīkoi into the forest to witness the destruction for themselves. Local communities then began asking a simple question: What are we going to do about it?

Today, thanks to extensive pest control, theforest is finding its voice again. Kōkako are calling from the canopy. Kererū gather in flocks on the forest floor. Kiekie and other traditional weaving and rongoā plants are flourishing again. Wētā and native invertebrates are returning, while fresh forest growth is surviving instead of being browsed away.

For RPM, restoring Te Raukūmara was never simply about conservation. It was about restoring the relationship between people and place.

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Listening Before Acting

RPM was created to restore the ecological and cultural wellbeing of Te Raukūmara, recognising that healthy forests are about far more than biodiversity. They are critical natural infrastructure, stabilising erosion-prone whenua, protecting waterways, and helping communities adapt to a changing climate.

Rather than rushing to solutions, RPM spent years researching and listening. Community leaders, kaumātua, whānau and local residents were invited into the forest to understand what had been lost. Trust was built before difficult conversations began about how the forest could be restored.

“You’ve got to know the problem before you can find the solution, and the scale of the solution has to match the scale of the problem,” explains RPM Trustee Ora Barlow.

Recordings of forest sounds were played tolocal school children. Few recognised native bird calls. But every hand shot up when they heard a possum cackle or a stag roar.

“Our kids are growing up in an environment where they think that’s the new normal,” Ora says. “We’re losing our cultural knowledge and that relationship with our native taonga.”

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Building Momentum

RPM’s initial restoration programme wasmade possible through the previous Government’s $34.4 million Jobs for Nature investment. It helped build the organisation’s capability, train a predominantly local workforce, and establish one of the country’s most ambitious conservation initiatives.

By the time the five-year programme ended, RPM had built the skills, partnerships and operational capabilities required to continue. Now, new investment is needed and BayTrust is granting $900,000 in strategic partnership funding over the next three years. It will contribute towards aerial 1080 predator control across 150,000 hectares within BayTrust’s region while also helping RPM attract further investment to sustain the programme into the future.

“We were completely ecstatic and so grateful,” Ora says. “It’s like the All Blacks getting the first try in the first half. It just gives you that momentum and you feel like a real winner.”

Pest monitoring shows 99% of rats have disappeared following aerial operations. No traces of 1080 have been found in any water samples taken, proving the programme has delivered both significant biodiversity gains and strong environmental safeguards.

Success on such a large scale is what Ora is most proud of. “Our people said ‘yes’ to the impossible. Nobody really thought we could do such a widespread 1080 programme and ungulate deer and goat programme. Because those tools are very emotive, and they’ve never been done in the North Island to this extent before.

“But we had trusted people saying trusted messages. We understood what once was, and what the forest needs. We researched the tools and were lucky enough to get Jobs for Nature funding. All these things were part of the big synergy of success.”

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A Legacy For Future Generations

The benefits now extend well beyond biodiversity. RPM’s workforce comes from local communities, creating employment and building the next generation of kaitiaki. Schools, kura and whānau are actively involved in restoration and environmental education, ensuring knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.

For Ora, that is what success looks like.

“This is my home, and this is where my bones come from. It’s really never been about conservation. It’s about honouring who has come before us and fulfilling our responsibility to those who will come after us.

“I want my people to be able to walk intothe Raukūmara and experience the same wonder that our tīpuna did, to hear the native reo of the forest, and to know that their people chose to act when it mattered most.”

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