Te Ohu Kaiwharawhara

Alongside those who call the Kaiwharawhara catchment home, you’ll also find people who work there—in fact, there are approximately 130 businesses in the Kaiwharawhara!

To help businesses look after the catchment, the Kia Mouriora te Kaiwharawhara Sanctuary to Sea collective started an initiative called Te Ohu Kaiwharawhara (previously Every Business Restoring Nature), which supports businesses to take nature-positive steps in their workplace.

We’ve had a range of local businesses take part and do activities such as trapping, planting natives, and clearing rubbish, which all improve the mouri of the Kaiwharawhara.

One of the businesses involved is Woods Waste. Located at the estuary end of the catchment, where the awa faces many big challenges, the staff at Woods Waste have chosen to focus on a challenge they can control—predator trapping.  

Thanks to Predator Free Khandallah, they have been trained to set and monitor Victor traps and now have responsibility over the trap lines along School Road behind their building and between Old Hutt Road and the train tracks. Their trapping efforts will help to keep mammalian predator numbers down in this area and help protect at risk species in this section of the awa.

They also provided two skip bins to help Zealandia and Wellington City Council staff remove invasive wattle trees from the estuary and then mulched these trees for free which saved the Kia Mouriora Te Kaiwharawhara collective thousands of dollars! 

“Would I recommend [Te Ohu Kaiwharawhara] to other businesses? The easy answer is don’t hesitate. It’s a great thing to be a part of. Everyone’s talked about how prideful they are of being involved right at the beginning. It’s been great getting to meet other businesses in the area. And we’ve seen a lot of benefits, not only in the stream but how our people interact with it. It’s great.” Jonathon Wilde from Woods Waste reflects.

Want to learn more about how people are taking action to help restore the mouri of the Kaiwharawhara? Generously funded by our strategic partner CentrePort, the latest exhibition on the ground floor of the Visitor Centre has just opened and this new space tells the story of the collaborative project, Kia Mouriora te Kaiwharawhara Sanctuary to Sea. This exhibition shares the creative solutions that have helped to contribute to the restoration of the Kaiwharawhara catchment and aims to inspire visitors to take action to help, in whatever way they can.

Take the time to check it out next time you visit and learn more about the Kaiwharawhara catchment and how people are working to save it. If you’d like to know more about getting involved with Te Ohu Kaiwharawhara, please contact SanctuaryToSea@visitzealandia.com.