Succession Planning for Environmental Expertise

Toitū Te Whenua has been pursuing methods to build our overall tribal environmental management capability in partnership with Papatipu Rūnanga. Secondment of a rūnanga-based resource manager has proved invaluable to all involved and demonstrates a potential way to enhance our support for rūnanga-based resource managers, particularly in their succession planning endeavours.

We have also been engaging with rūnanga and regional environmental entities with regard to region-specific capability needs and tailoring training wānanga to address these. A well-received wānanga covering Resource Management Act processes including resource consent applications, cultural impact assessments and the submission and hearings process was held at Takahanga Marae. We also worked to increase Ngāi Tahu participation in resource management decision-making roles by supporting whānau to complete the requisite training and assume commissioner positions.

Other areas of support included facilitating wānanga with rūnanga and various entities such as Land Information New Zealand and the Historic Places Trust to ensure whānau have access to information concerning land tenure and use, heritage sites, artefacts etcetera. Hands-on training activities such as electric fishing wānanga to enhance State of Takiwā monitoring capacity were also well attended by whānau.