Investing in our land is key

MATUA RON HOUGH

“It’s got a good wairua here, especially for me and my family. It’s embedded us into the ground really, into the whenua.

But we really don’t have a supportive group that could help Māori and put these lands to where they should be – productive! When we started talking about Tāmata Hauhā and its formation, I was just totally blown away about that concept and what it could do. In the western world, you remove all the vegetation, like the trees, but this concept is putting it back on the ground again.

As Māori, we know that the rākau, the ngahere was part of our mere existence. We’ve got all this land. We’ve got to do something otherwise we are going to just leave it to another generation to go nowhere and sit idle.

It’s more about the future. It’s about what we are going to leave behind. What is Ron Hough going to leave for his family and for his moko and his grand moko? This could be a big change for us, for family, for whānau, for land owners.

I would like to walk back onto the land and say there is something here that is going to benefit all of us.