Regenerate Community - Waitotara Farm, Inumia & Waiare Restoration

This is a riparian restoration, taonga species recovery, and community food security project using holistic whanaungatanga based regenerative practices to support Mauri Atua, Mauri Tangata, and Mauri Whenua

We will restore 200 meters of a small waterway that feeds the Inumia Stream, using an innovative integrated riparian and syntropic approach: native forest buffers protecting water quality and habitat, transitioning into multi-layer food forests that support long-term community and environmental resilience. Some areas have already been fenced and planted, and these areas need managing and infilling with food plants. Other areas will be prepared and planted from bare degraded riparian edge. The community and landowners help plant, maintain, and harvest the food and eventually supply the local Pātaka Kai. This is the Pilot Project of a wider vision for Regenerate Community. Success here creates the template, methodology, and community engagement protocols for replication across the catchment and region.

THE PROBLEM
The Inumia and Waiare River and its watershed face declining water quality. The Kāeo and Whangaroa community need food resilience and a healthy Te Taiao. There is a critical need for "on-the-ground" restoration that is led by those who belong to the whenua, but the most urgent story is beneath the surface. Kāeo (Echyridella menziesi) that give our village its name, our freshwater mussels that filter and clean our water are at risk of extinction. These taonga can live 50 years, yet their populations are crashing due to pollution,sedimentation, and loss of the fish hosts their larvae depend on.

Without shade, water temperatures rise. Without clean gravels, juvenile mussels cannot settle. Without healthy populations of inanga, the kāeo can't survive.

OUR SOLUTION
We integrate three proven approaches into one innovative system:

Riparian Habitat Restoration and Protection
Fencing a buffer zone from grazing farm animals (Zone 1: 0-8m from water)
Plant Fast-growing natives (sedges, tī kōuka,mānuka, kānuka, kōwhai,pukatea, kahikatea) establish immediate shade, and stabilizing banks We target 70% canopy cover within 5 years.
Syntropic Transition Zone (Zone 2: 8-20m)
Here we innovate: bananas, temperate fruit trees, and nitrogen-fixing support species inter-planted with riparian natives. This zone produces massive biomass for chop-and-drop mulching back into Zone 1, creates value viability for long-term stewardship, and demonstrates that food production and water protection coexist.
Community Capacity Building
Volunteer planting days, (Time banking/Complimentary Currency credits potential), Kaitiaki workshops teaching the mussel-fish-forest connection, a well stocked Pātaka Kai (community food pantry) and citizen science monitoring with community water care groups ( Kaitiaki Whangaroa )and regenerative land management recovery habitat, protecting Taonga species (local technical advisor, India Power from Power Pastures)

TĀONGA SPECIES FOCUS
This project explicitly targets recovery habitat for three interconnected species:
Kāeo - At-risk freshwater mussels requiring cool, shaded, sediment-free water
Tuna - Longfin and shortfin eels habitat.
Inanga - Whitebait requiring riparian vegetation for spawning and potentially hosting mussel glochidia/ larvae
Monitoring protocol tracks water temperature, mussel numbers, and fish presence, providing data that informs regional biodiversity management.

PILOT & REPLICATION STRATEGY
Regenerate Community - Waitotara Farm is designed as a demonstration site.
This is a small do-able, first land project by Regenerate Community. If it works here, we'll use the same model to restore other areas in the watershed and establish more local syntropic food foresty.