The origins of the collective

Written by Debbie Winn: Chair of the MCC Steering Group

At the launch of the MPI funding for the Motueka Catchment Collective. With iwi representatives from Ngāti Tama, Te Ātiawa, Damien O’Connor, TDC and MCC members.

In 2020 a group of farmers, including myself and Jo Leyland, attended a Beef and Lamb workshop where Trevor James TDC Scientist and Annette Litherland Landcare Trust, demonstrated using a SHMAK kit for freshwater testing and talked of building catchment groups. It was truly inspiring.

I came back to the farm, and we fenced our first wee block to regenerate, then fenced another 5 hectares of hill to plant. I contacted farmers and small block holders in the Dovedale Sub-catchment, to gauge interest in forming a catchment group, they wanted “no meetings, just information and plants please.” With fortuitous timing Bill McKinley decided to convert from growing veggies to growing natives. Our wee Dovedale community nursery was born, which Bill now runs.   

Jo Leyland (click the link to read more about Jo), long-time resident and farmer in Tapawera, started gathering like-minded people together from Tapawera and surrounding areas, forming the Upper Motueka Catchment Collective. This group traversed a wide range of issues relating to Tapawera and surrounding areas with many stakeholders.

During this time, Annette Litherland from Landcare Trust asked Jo and I to contribute to meetings in Ngātīmoti and Motueka to encourage locals to start their own sub-catchment groups.

It was about this stage we heard of funding through the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for catchment capacity building. The Tapawera group started building a funding request focusing on issues the community had raised.

To make sure we were being holistic and connected, we became the Motueka Catchment Collective to cover the whole catchment. As part of this, we started looking for a co-ordinator and setting up terms of Reference. The Steering Group, of which I am co-chair, was established in March this year.

Since March, the Steering Group have been hard at work establishing jointly agreed values and principals, with valued input from Iwi. We look forward to a positive year of action in 2024!