Kia Tina: How Te Weu Tairāwhiti is Rooting Climate Action in Community

When the Land Speaks

In February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle tore through Tairāwhiti with devastating force. Roads disappeared. Bridges plunged into swollen rivers. Hillsides that were destabilised by historic land-use decisions sent massive slips of mud and debris crashing down. Communities were cut off, grieving, and carrying the heavy impacts of a changing climate.

Tairāwhiti had been preparing for this moment without even knowing it.

Just weeks before Gabrielle hit, Te Weu had begun preparing for a community-led kōrero  about land use and climate adaptation. What began as future-focused research became urgent listening.

Working with communities from Muriwai in the south to Matakaoa in the north, as well as special-interest groups including the disabilities community, Te Weu and research partners spent time in homes, on marae, and in community spaces. Together, they held space for stories of fear, loss, resilience, and care. Nearly 50 residents, including health professionals, contributed to this collective account of what happened, what helped, and what must change.

As Renee puts it: "We have seen the toll these decisions take, slips scarring the land, awa choking with debris, and the heavy weight carried by our whānau. Our mahi is to sit with this kōrero and to listen deeply: to science, to mātauranga, to lived experience."

From Listening to Leading

Out of those conversations came something remarkable: The Tairāwhiti Citizens' Assembly. Forty people, randomly selected from across the region (via a process called ‘sortition’ so that they were representative of the population as a whole), ranging from their 20s to their 70s, came together to tackle one of the most challenging questions facing their community: what should happen to the 600,000 hectares of erosion-prone land currently used for pine forestry and pastoral farming?

This was not a top-down exercise. It was a collaborative, community-centred process supported by Te Weu, partner facilitators, local and national expertise, creating the conditions for Tairāwhiti communities to articulate their aspirations for the future.

Over several weekends, participants heard from experts and practitioners across land use, ecology, climate science, mātauranga, and wellbeing, shared their own lived experiences of erosion, storm impacts, and historic land-use decisions weighed complex trade-offs between community safety, livelihoods, ecological restoration, and intergenerational responsibility debated diverse perspectives and values and collaborated to shape a shared vision for a fair and locally led land-use transition.

In October 2024, Gisborne District Council endorsed the Assembly’s recommendation to prioritise native forest restoration on the region’s most vulnerable lands. For many participants, this decision reflected not only the evidence presented but also the deep sense of responsibility they carried for their communities and whenua.

"Tairāwhiti has the potential to lead Aotearoa in what a truly just and regenerative land-use future can look like," says Renee, "but we need to shift power, unlock resources, and trust the wisdom of place."

The Healing Power of Creativity

This year, Te Weu supported another groundbreaking project - Mōwai: The Weight of Water,  an exhibition led by Te Weu researcher Dayna Chaffey, that transformed the findings from their cyclone research into art. Paintings, sculptures, installations, digital works that were all created by local artists in response to their community's stories.

Hundreds of people came. Rangatahi created alongside kaumātua. Families saw their experiences honoured in public space. Visitors described it as "healing," "grounding," "a space that felt like us."

One person said during the opening: "Out of disasters come miracles."

The exhibition has now gone digital, connecting artists' profiles with the research that inspired them. A Tairāwhiti Creative Directory is growing, linking local artists with future opportunities. What started as climate research became community healing, which became economic opportunity, which became a model for other regions to follow.

"Kia Tina"

There's a whakatauki (proverb) that guides Te Weu's work:

‘He tina ki runga, he tāmore ki raro.’
To flourish above, one must be firmly rooted below.

Tina means to be fixed, steadfast, held firm. "Kia tina!" you'll hear in karakia. It’s a call to stay the course, hold strong together, fulfil responsibilities.

This is what Te Weu does. They root climate action in whakapapa, in identity, in place. They train local researchers so that knowledge stays in the community. They create pathways for rangatahi to lead. They ensure that when decisions get made about Tairāwhiti's future, it's Tairāwhiti voices doing the deciding, not distant bureaucrats.

The Te Weu team is conducting research and building capacity within the region. Renee Raroa, chair of Te Weu Tairāwhiti Charitable Trust, learned early that decisions about land aren't just about today, they're about the generations that came before, and those yet to come. She brings deep expertise in climate finance markets, indigenous knowledge, science and more. Dr Naomi Simmonds, a Raukawa wahine and māmā to tamariki from Tairāwhiti, brings profound expertise in mana wahine knowledges and land-based learning. Her own Marsden-funded research project involved leading seven wāhine on a three-week, 400km hīkoi across the North Island, retracing the journey of their ancestress Māhinaarangi, who walked that distance while heavily pregnant over 500 years ago, birthing her son Raukawa (for whom the tribe is named) along the way. As Naomi describes it, the journey was about "unlearning. Trying to strip away the layers I think I need to be a successful mum or a strong woman in this world and going back to our environment, our land, the stories of our ancestors." That philosophy, to find strength and wisdom in ancestral footsteps, infuses all of Te Weu's work. Dana Carman and Tarsh Gow round out the team, whose work ranges across climate education to health impacts and more. And through it all, they're training the next generation of community researchers, creating paid roles that are grounded in Tairāwhiti and guided by local values.

What This Funding Means

When The Climatics rockstar curation team decided to fund Te Weu Tairāwhiti, it was to support a model of climate action that's about transferring power. About communities leading, not being led. About honouring the land and the people together.

With this unrestricted grant, they hope to deepen their tuakana–teina (mentor-student) pathways for rangatahi and community researchers, building paid training, mentoring, and research roles that are grounded in Tairāwhiti and guided by our values. The funding will help them strengthen community-led climate and land-use research, grow local capability to lead climate justice, and invest in the internal systems that sustain this mahi. In short, it enables them to keep building a strong, values-led team and a sustainable future for Te Weu, so their communities can continue to shape decisions for tangata and whenua.

As they wrote to us: "This grant is a profound expression of trust in Te Weu, in Tairāwhiti, and in community-led futures. Unrestricted funding recognises that our strongest work grows from whakapapa, relationships, and local wisdom, not short project cycles."

They can say "kia tina" and hold firm to their kaupapa, care for their people, and make generational decisions rather than reactive ones.

Why This Matters for All of Us

You might be reading this from Auckland or Wellington, from Christchurch or overseas, wondering why a regional organisation in Tairāwhiti matters to you.

It’s because climate change is a systems issue, and systems change requires shifting where the power sits.

For too long, decisions about land use in Aotearoa have been made far from the communities that live with the consequences. Corporate forestry companies. Central government officials. Distant investors. The result? Hillsides planted in pine that turned into weapons during storms. Communities whose traditional knowledge was ignored. Economic models that extracted wealth from regions without reinvesting in their resilience.

Te Weu is modelling something different and showing what happens when communities have the resources, training, and trust to lead their own climate adaptation. When research is done by locals, for locals, grounded in both science and mātauranga Māori. When young people see pathways to meaningful, paid work tackling the biggest challenge of our time - right in their own rohe.

This is the kind of climate action that builds collective power. It heals trauma. It creates economic opportunities. It honours the past while protecting the future.

Looking Ahead

Sometimes the best way forward is to remove what's extractive and let what's indigenous flourish. To trust that the whenua knows how to heal, and that the people of that whenua know how to support it.

That's the work Te Weu is doing—not just responding to the last disaster, but building the relationships, knowledge systems, and community power needed to navigate the ones yet to come. With unconditional funding, they can make decisions based on what their communities need rather than what funders want to hear about.

"Together, we imagine a future where connections to te taiao are healed," the Citizens' Assembly wrote in their vision. "Where the land is cherished, the people are uplifted and the mauri of Tairāwhiti flows strong once again... Where tamariki grow up knowing the names of the places that hold their stories."

That's a future we're proud to fund. That's a movement we're honoured to support.

Kia tina, Te Weu. Stay rooted, stay strong, and keep leading the way.