New Zealander of the Year
Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa
Blair Jamieson (Ngāpuhi/Te Rarawa) is the CE and co-founder of Tāmata Hauhā and is a semi-finalist for the 2024 New Zealander of the Year award. Tāmata Hauhā is an organisation dedicated to restoring lands and uplifting people in areas where finance is constrained, i.e. Māori lands. Blair and the team work to provide landowners with strategies and funding to create large scale solar farms and multiple-use carbon forests, i.e. for honey, nutraceuticals, horticulture, or agroforestry (farming under forests). Under Blairs leadership, landowners have been encouraged to design their own forests and avoid the conventional use/application of Pine. Tāmata Hauhā has funded the planting of 4.9 million trees, with development set for another 25 million over the next 5 years. The organisation is on track to reduce and remove over 30 million tons of carbon, generating $2 billion for Māori over the next 30 years. Blair has also co-founded the charity Tāmitanga Whakamuri which reinjects these profits into communities to address the wider issues for Māori, such as Health, Education and Housing. We have also contributed more than 50,000 to community projects and clubs. We have committed to donating a sports club to Rātana Pā via the capture of human waste for free fertiliser and carbon.
