21/05/2026
Restoring movement, flow, and balance across the taiao is not only about reconnecting a stream or improving fish passage.
Through Kaitiakitanga, it is about restoring whakapapa, the natural relationships that bind the domains of our atua together.
Parawhenuamea flows through the streams and waterways, carrying life from the whenua.
Tangaroa sustains the fish and aquatic life within those waters.
Hine-moana receives and holds these connections as they move toward the wider coastal waters.
Tāne Mahuta shelters the manu, the ngahere, and the living world above. Papatūānuku carries and nourishes them all.
These connections aren't separate. They are woven through whakapapa, through movement, through mauri, and through the balance of the taiao.
For our tara iti, survival depends on each of these domains working together, the whenua, the wai, the fish, the moana, the manu, and the unseen relationships that hold them in balance.
When we restore these connections, we are not only restoring habitat. We are helping to restore the living whakapapa that allows tara iti, and all life connected to them, to endure.
With only 11 breeding females left in the wild, every meal matters for the tara iti (fairy tern). That's why Auckland Council has led a successful effort to restore the natural connection between Te Arai Stream and two critical dune lakes inland; Lakes Slipper and Spectacle.
🐠 These lakes are vital feeding grounds for native fish like inanga (whitebait), which the fairy tern relies on to survive. But for years, a culvert beneath Te Arai Point Road blocked fish from swimming upstream to reach them.
⚠️ The problem? Erosion beneath the pipe had created a sharp vertical drop where the pipe outlet sat above the stream bed. Native fish swimming upstream would hit this barrier and couldn't jump up into the pipe. Unlike salmon, inanga can't leap obstacles - even a small height difference becomes an impassable wall.
Auckland Council replaced the culvert with a new fish-friendly box culvert, purpose-built to allow native species to move freely between the stream and lakes.
🌿 It's a quiet project in a remote spot - but it could mean the difference between extinction and survival for one of New Zealand's most precious taonga.
🤝 This work, funded through Auckland Council's Natural Environment Targeted Rate, is part of a broader ecological restoration effort led by local iwi Te Uri o Hau.
