A Māori farming partnership near Lake Taupō, which began a journey nearly 10 years ago to diversify its operations to a lower nitrogen impact, is seeing wide ranging benefits and opportunities.
Tuatahi Farming Partnership, which farms around 6-thousand hectares of of high country land in the catchment above Lake Taupō, was one of the first and largest land owners to strike a deal, with at the time, the newly established Lake Taupō Protection Trust. The aim being to protect the long term future of the lake.
Tuatahi sold 28 tonnes of its nitrogen footprint to the Trust for around $10 million along with carbon credits from tree planting being on sold to Mercury Energy.
The funding contracts led to significant land change that water scientists say will, in the long term, benefit the lake. The nitrogen and carbon deals have also led to new farming and business opportunities for Tuatahi. The farming partnership has significantly reduced its beef and sheep operation moving into forestry, tourism and now potentially into kōura farming.
Tuatahi Partnership farms land that has around 60 kilometres of streams, ponds and wetlands through it, waterways that are becoming cleaner by the year and that may be ideally suited to farming the native fresh water crayfish.
Tuatahi Director, John Hura (pictured above), says the analysis is currently being done to see how the kōura venture stacks up financially, but there is no question that they have the right environment.
“I guess what this is showing, is that we are developing a farming and business operation that is throwing up opportunities, things that we would have never considered 10 years ago,” he says.
Added to the possible kōura enterprise is a tourism focused deer hunting lodge, which is up and running, and nearly a thousand hectares of forestry plantings. It is a farming operation very different from what it once was.
Chair of the Lake Taupō Protection Trust, Clayton Stent, says success for Tuatahi is also success for Lake Taupō.
“It’s a great story. It shows the work of the Trust to remove non point-source nitrogen from the catchment has been achieved with positive consequences. It hasn’t been the doom and gloom for farming that was envisaged by some 10 years ago, and of course we hope the real winner will be the lake itself. Back before we started, the science was telling us that as a country and a local community we needed to act if we wanted a healthy future for the lake. The overall nitrogen reduction target for the catchment of 170 tonnes was met ahead of schedule and a very important step has been taken for the long term protection of the water quality of Lake Taupō,” says Clayton Stent.
Tuatahi Director, John Mariu, says the contracts with both the Lake Taupō Protection Trust and Mercury were a dynamic step in the future management of the land.
“It has taken us to a new place in terms of land utilisation and commercialisation, and very importantly, it has also seen a greater merging of the cultural intent that the shareholder owners have for the land,” he says.
Tautahi has grown to a $60 million enterprise and provided shareholders with a secure financial future by also adding considerable off farm investment.
The Tuatahi directors say that when it came to changing farming practices and land use they really had no choice. The long term protection of Lake Taupō was paramount for them as tangata whenua. The fact they’ve been able to take advantage of other opportunities along the way has been a bonus.
John Hura says the change in land use has been the cataylst.
“It has enabled us to be a lot more progressive in our approach to farming, but without compromising our connection with land as Māori owners. And thinking about the possibility of farming kōura, one of the things I have found out, and is interesting to know, is that prior to 1926 local Māori had a commercial enterprise selling kōura in the area, so the fact that we might be doing this again is a great story all round ... a bit like back to the future,” he says.
A future that all are hoping includes a Lake Taupō that continues to be pristine and healthy.
The Tuatahi Farming Partnership manages 6000 hectares above Lake Taupō which has seen signifcant land use change in the past 10 years.
Tuatahi directors John Hura and John Mariu say the contracts to reduce nitrogen on their farming operations have been the catalyst for a more progressive farming approach while still retaining their cultural ties to the land.