Tupu ā Nuku – A Candle in the Dark for Rangatahi and the Whenua
How Te Kahui Maru makes an authentic difference
On a cool Taranaki morning you can find them out on the whenua – checking traps, hauling spades, planting seedlings, listening for kiwi in the dark. They look like any bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings in hi-vis. But these rangatahi are part of something quietly extraordinary - Tupu ā Nuku, an iwi-led environmental workforce programme that is changing lives one workday at a time.
Tupu ā Nuku is led by Ngāti Maru and based on a simple idea with big consequences - bring together people, training, employment and the environment and treat each young person as someone whose future actually matters. Not as a “case”, not as a statistic, but as uri of the iwi with potential, whakapapa and responsibilities.
On paper, the programme has five neat pillars – pathways, education and training, pastoral care, employment and iwi leadership. In practice, that means a small, committed team spending their days doing very human work - turning up to schools and wānanga, walking alongside rangatahi who have fallen through the cracks, sitting with employers to smooth over the inevitable first-job bumps, and keeping the cultural foundations solid under the whole thing.
The team itself is refreshingly real. In the photos you’ll see Michael and Jayden Waiwiri, Danielle Peri (Tumu Whakahaere), Amaria Aperehama and Tahi Burns – not corporate stock imagery but locals in boots and jackets, standing on their own whenua. They are the bridge between rangatahi who need a break and an environmental sector crying out for skilled, committed workers.
The mahi is anything but tokenistic. Tupu ā Nuku crews are out planting native trees, doing goat control, monitoring predators, eco-sourcing and collecting seed, and helping with kiwi releases. This is hands-on conservation, not just classroom theory about climate change.
When the Taranaki Regional Council judges gave Tupu ā Nuku the Environmental Action in the Community award for 2025, they singled out the programme’s “outstanding mahi helping rangatahi develop conservation skills, creating employment pathways and creating a future workforce committed to protecting the environment” and its excellence in “hands-on, culturally grounded conservation education” with intergenerational impacts.
That phrase – “future workforce” – is doing a lot of work. This is not a short-term course that ends with a certificate and a shrug. Tupu ā Nuku commits to pastoral support for two years into employment. Two years of someone checking in, helping you navigate the minefield of licences, transport, money, workplace expectations and the occasional urge to pull the plug and walk away. Anyone who has shepherded a young person into their first serious job knows how invaluable that steadying presence can be.
You can see that support threaded through their own pānui and success stories. They talk about graduates like Journi with genuine pride, emphasising not just qualifications achieved but the ongoing relationship – Tupu ā Nuku will “continue to support her and ensure she maintains connections with her iwi, Ngāti Maru”. The subtext is powerful - once you come into this kaupapa, you are not disposable.
The programme also wraps around other local initiatives. In the Taranaki Forestry Conservation Course, for example, Tupu ā Nuku provides pastoral care and cultural input alongside technical training – making sure the course isn’t just about chainsaws and safety briefings but also about belonging, values and connection to place. That mix matters. It is far easier to stay in a job when you can see how your daily graft fits with your identity and your community’s aspirations.
If you zoom out from the individuals, you start to see what this looks like for Taranaki as a whole. Landscapes are being restored. Predator numbers come down. Native seedlings go into the ground where scrub once sat ignored. Iwi capacity to lead environmental work is strengthened, not just through governance seats and strategy documents, but through dozens of local young people who know how to plant, trap, monitor and manage.
All of this is happening in a national climate where, if we are honest, the default setting in Wellington seems to be defund, centralise, shut down, or quietly starve anything that doesn’t fit a narrow economic spreadsheet. (That’s an opinion, but it’s hard to miss the pattern.)
Policy after policy is trimming back exactly the kinds of social and environmental programmes that hold communities together and give people a sense that their lives matter beyond the next payday.
Against that backdrop, Tupu ā Nuku feels like a candle in the dark.
It doesn’t roar or thunder. It just gets on with the work - another intake of rangatahi, another block course out at Lake Rotokare, another planting season, another nervous first day on site where someone from the team is there to say, “You’ve got this, e hoa. We’re right here.” The recent coverage on RNZ’s Afternoons made that quiet determination plain – Employment Advisor (Pastoral Care) Jayden Waiwiri describing it as a huge honour to have their work acknowledged, while clearly still focused on the next young person who needs a pathway.
There is also something deeply hopeful about the fact that this kaupapa is iwi-led. At a time when Treaty relationships are being politicised and weaponised, here is an example of mana whenua taking responsibility for both people and place – training a new generation of kaitiaki who can earn a living while caring for the environment. That is what real “partnership” looks like - not slogans, but budgets, boots and long days on steep hillsides.
From a distance, you could slot Tupu ā Nuku into any number of categories - youth employment programme, conservation initiative, regional development project. Up close, it feels more like a promise. A promise that if we invest in rangatahi with care, cultural grounding and patience, they will repay that trust in spades – in healthier ecosystems, stronger whānau and communities who can face the future with something sturdier than rhetoric.
In a country that has become rather good at telling people what we can no longer afford, Tupu ā Nuku is a gentle, stubborn reminder of what we cannot afford to lose.
If we want more candles in the dark, this is the shape they will probably take - local, relational, not especially glossy, run by people who know every hill and river by name. Measured not just in KPIs but in the number of young people who can finally say, with quiet pride, “I’ve got mahi. I’m needed here.”
For further reference -
Ngāti Maru – Tupu ā Nuku: Environmental Workforce Development
Programme overview, five key deliverables, team, and pānui links. Ngāti Maru
https://maru.nz/tupu-a-nuku-2/
Taranaki Regional Council – Environmental Action in the Community 2025: Tupu ā Nuku (Award Citation)
Official citation outlining the mahi, impact, and judges’ comments. Taranaki Regional Council
https://www.trc.govt.nz/environment/working-together/environmental-awards/previous-winners/2025-award-winners/environmental-action-in-the-community-2025
Taranaki Regional Council – Outstanding Environmental and Conservation Work Recognised by TRC
News story summarising all 2025 environmental award winners, with a section on Tupu ā Nuku’s work. Taranaki Regional Council
https://www.trc.govt.nz/council/news-and-events/council-news/outstanding-environmental-and-conservation-work-recognised-by-trc
RNZ Afternoons – “Find out about an award-winning community project in Taranaki” (18 Nov 2025)
Audio interview with Jayden Waiwiri about Tupu ā Nuku, including a short written intro. RNZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2019013182/find-out-about-an-award-winning-community-project-in-taranaki
Farmers Weekly – “Taranaki names its 2025 environmental heroes”
Coverage of the TRC awards with a concise description of Tupu ā Nuku’s mahi and impact. Farmers Weekly
https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/people/taranaki-names-its-2025-environmental-heroes/
Tupu ā Nuku – Facebook Page (Environmental Workforce Development, Taranaki)
Photos, updates from the field, and short posts that give a feel for day-to-day activity. Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/tupuanukutaranaki/
If you’d like to share your thoughts or discuss further, feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear from you. +64 275 665 682 john.luxton@regenerationhq.co.nz www.regenerationhq.co.nz/contact