[Video starts with aerial views of the Wairoa River, Wairoa, Hawke’s Bay, then audio of man talking.]

Turi Paku, Huramua Marae community: The river when you see the bend out behind me, out that way, it’s coming in and it’s hitting the edge of the shoreline over here, which we used to have all our people buried, and its slowly taking them away. So, we thought we would try and be proactive and get in before the river took them. 

[Visual of man speaking, people planting trees by the river, and aerial views of planting area.]

Turi Paku, Huramua Marae community: The challenge has been put to us to at least uplift our loved ones to somewhere safe, but also to retire this area as a wāhi tapu (sacred place) and close it off with natives. And to that extent we’ve been lucky for Te Uru Rākau (Forestry New Zealand) to come to our assistance and help.

[Visual of area for planting and native trees ready to be planted, with sound of Huramua Marae community singing a blessing and welcome.]

Subtitle: Matariki Tu Rākau Tanemitiriangi Huramua Marae planting, 11 July 2020.

[Sound of singing continues with visual of marae being swept, Returned Service Personnel Roll of Honour, New Zealand flag being raised, bell being run. Visitors walk to marae, remove gumboots and enter. Matariki Tu Rākau flag and people loading native plants into a trailer, people greeting each other.]

Belinda Miller, Te Uru Rākau senior advisor, Matariki Tu Rākau: Matariki Tu Rākau provides funds for communities to plant trees in public spaces to commemorate New Zealand heroes.

[Visual of close up of women speaking.]

Belinda Miller: I think it’s a fantastic grant to be a part of. It really enables people to plant trees to commemorate people that are important to them.

[Visual of people continuing to load up the trailer with native trees, close up of trees, people welcoming each other.]

Chaans Tumatoroa-Clarke, Huramua Marae chair: It’s important to honour the people that have been instrumental in giving this community and this marae the whakapapa (family history and genealogy) that it has, and all the different connections that we have with each other, especially while they’re still in living memory.

[Visual of man speaking in the hall and then at the ceremony.]

Chaans Tumatoroa-Clarke Huramua Marae Chair: Sir Turi Carrol was a World War 1 veteran, sent overseas with the rank of corporal.

[Visual of man speaking in the hall.]

Chaans Tumatoroa-Clarke Huramua Marae chair: It’s important that we record the stories, kōrero, that we have about them, so that all of our children and grandchildren and generations to come will have first-hand information.

[Visual of woman next to man digging a hole for a tree.]

Film maker: Is this a special spot you have picked out here?

Eve Tremain, Huramua Marae whānau: Yes, because my two nannies are buried right here.

[Visual of child being directed where to plant a tree.]

Huramua Marae whānau member: Big step, good girl, put it right there, go back a bit. Ka pai (good).

[Visual of the two planting organisers talking, then one of them sitting and speaking to camera]

Karen Paku, Huramua Marae project management committee: So, the great thing about Matariki Tu Rākau is that they were very approachable. It was easy to get the funding and then we could sit down and organise our own day, and how we were going to run it. So, we had a planting plan and these were the type of trees that we wanted.

[Visual of people looking at planting plan and viewing plants.]

Huramua whānau member: Pittosporum, they’ll get quite big.

[Visual of woman outside Huramua Memorial Hall.]

Raewyn Paku-Robinson, Huramua whānau: So, they help us plan out you know exactly how many trees we might need for our area. They were really helpful because we’re working across two different sites, so she allowed us to kind of have some here at our new urupa but also some to commemorate our soldiers that are still sitting in our old urupa as well.

[Visual of women with native plant in a pot.]

Belinda Miller, Te Uru Rākau senior advisor, Matariki Tu Rākau: These beautiful plants have come from Minginui Nursery.

[Visual of potted native plants close up, people helping themselves to food in the hall and talking over cups of tea, outside at the planting site sharpening tools, cutting weed mat and planting trees, then close up of woman.]

Karen Paku, Huramua Marae project management committee: They supplied all the trees. They also gave us enough money to feed everyone, to have the hakari (sharing of food). But also, they supplied us with some of the stuff that made this happen, so like with the weed mat as well. It was great. It made today. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the funding.

[Visual of people planting trees and putting on trees guards, the Matariki Tu Rākau plaque, and community witnessing the unveiling of the plaque.]

Tiana Hunter, Huramua whānau: These trees were planted by Tanemitirangi Huramua Marare on the 11th of July 2020 to honour Sir Turi Carroll and all the Returned Service Personnel of the Huramua rohe (district).

[Sound of singing a blessing, visual of man sitting with a child in the hall.]

Chaans Tumatoroa-Clarke, Huramua Marae chair: It’s good to be able to put some native trees and shrubs and that back into the land.

[Visual of woman sitting and speaking.]

Karen Paku, Huramua Marae project management committee: It’s like we’re native, they’re native. It’s sort of like bringing everyone together.

[Visual of an older woman planting trees, then woman speaking in front of the hall, people placing tree guards on plants, close up of native plant, baby reaching to a newly planted native tree.]

Raewyn Paku-Robinson, Huramua whānau: They will outlast us. They will outlast us. They’re going to be here for many years to come. And as we grow old, they grow old with us, and we’ll be able to see the place just develop, and just grow and become something beautiful for everyone to come back to.

Singing: Amen

[Video ends aerial view of planted area with audio of singing a blessing. Title card reads: Matariki Tu Rākau helping communities plant living memorials to honour their heroes. Te Uru Rākau logo. Apply for funding to run your community planting event by visiting www.mpi.govt.nz/matariki-tu-rakau  emailing matarikiturakau@mpi.gov.nz or calling 0800 008 333. Thanks to Tanemitiragi Huramua Marae (Wairoa, Hawke’s Bay) and Minginui Nursery (Minginui, Bay of Plenty). Produced by Kim Boyce-Campbell.]

[End of transcript]