Mountains To Sea Wellington
Mountains To Sea Wellington (MTSW) is a not-for-profit environmental trust based in Wellington, New Zealand. Their mission is to inspire kaitiakitanga (guardianship) for rivers, harbours, and coasts and motivate people to make positive environmental changes. The organisation’s skill sets build collaborative working relationships and provide science, education, environmental expertise, and outreach experiences.
The Trust’s work includes environmental education for sustainability programmes around freshwater and marine environments with young people and students across the Greater Wellington region.
In 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation supported the “Love Rimurimu Restoration project”, a collaborative effort to pilot the regeneration of rimurimu (seaweed) forests in Whanganui-a-tara, New Zealand.
Due to anthropogenic activities and global changes, temperate kelp forests are declining, particularly on urbanised coasts.
In Wellington Harbour, kelp forests provide vital ecosystem services. They also have significant cultural and social values for Māori and the wider community. However, these forests have been degraded due to various stressors and are reducing in range and diversity of species present.
The Mountains To Sea Wellington Trust initiated the project, supported by science expertise and local government, industry, community and mana whenua interests. This initiative will trial effective seaweed regenerative methodologies, learn from and share the outcomes, and engage widely with the community.
The Eurofins Foundation’s funding supported the collection of critical baseline data to help begin to ascertain the extent of seaweed cover loss in the Wellington harbour, and build understanding of where MTSW could focus its regeneration efforts.
With the funding, MTSW engaged the Victoria University Coastal Ecology Lab to undertake 6 monitoring surveys measuring the cover of seaweed species and associated biota.
The funding also supported research into marine heat wave simulations in the lab. The ability of seaweeds to be resilient in the face of warming seas will be crucial. The information collected, alongside a building body of knowledge will help further research into this area.
In addition to Eurofins Foundation’ support, Eurofins New-Zealand was involved in the project, providing a good sounding board for local laboratory techniques and opportunities.
In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation renewed its support to this initiative, focusing on Education, Community Outreach and Internships. Funding contributed to:
- Engagement with schools:
- Three classes engaged in 2022/23 from Kura Kaupapa Māori schools – over 80 students who identify as Māori.
- Two further mainstream schools assisted with the gathering of ‘green gravel’ rocks which are then inoculated with the seaweeds for outplanting.
- A Love Rimurimu Immersion Day held in September 2023 and co-lead with Taranaki Whānui, the kura and Mountains To Sea Wellington team.
- Eight students trained as ‘Kura Kelpers’ - a monitoring and restoration team made up of senior students who are directly involved in monitoring seaweeds and assisting with plant-outs.
- Students lead the first seaweed plant-outs at Kakariki Bay in September 2023.
- Engagement with the community
- Five Community Snorkel Days were held with over 600 participants and a strong focus on education on seaweeds and their importance at both marine protected, and unprotected sites.
- Internships & traineeships
- The development of a kaimanga (internship) role within the project with the guidance of Kaiwhakahaere Māori (Māori manager) and support from the wider MTSW team.
- These roles have enabled great progress in supporting the use of the maramataka (traditional calendar/lunar phases) and its integration into the project plant-outs, the reinvigoration of original place names and the knowledge contained within them, and also the use of natural fibres and reducing waste in plant-out techniques.
The Eurofins Foundation renews its support to the Love Rimurimu project for the period 2023/2025.
This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal
