Iwi and communities bring kiwi back to Wellington after 150 years

For the first time in 150 years, kiwi once again live in the hills surrounding Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. More than 250 manu (“birds” in the Māori language) were successfully translocated back to the region, thanks to the efforts of the iwi (nations of Aotearoa), community members, and landowners behind the Capital Kiwi Project.

Paul Ward, the project lead and founder, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to explain the yearslong effort to make this possible.

“This is a relational project as much as it is what you might traditionally call a conservation project. And I think at a fundamental level that if we lose our relationship with these animals, with these manu … they risk becoming a museum species,” he says.

Rāwiri Walsh (Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngā Rauru Kītahi, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) is the project’s Kaimanaaki Kiwi (kiwi guardian) and iwi liaison. He also joins the podcast to explain the process from the perspective of Te ao Māori (the Māori world). For the Capital Kiwi project to receive kiwi, they must be gifted the birds by iwi through a tono, a gifting process. The project then bestows the bird on a community through a pōwhiri, a traditional Māori welcoming ceremony.

And then the tono, as Walsh explains, is a request to the iwi for the birds.

“From a Māori perspective, we just had to agree with the iwi that we were receiving from, and they had to agree with us that they wanted to give us kiwi,” Walsh says.

“What we were able to do when moving kiwi is … welcome the people, both the sanctuary workers as well as the iwi, onto the lands that they were bringing the birds. And then … the responsibility and the onus to the birds would switch … we would do the pōwhiri or the ceremony, and then there would be a process where they would be handed over,” Walsh says.

The project is far from over, Ward says, as communities now share responsibility for caring for the birds. He adds that this model is a proof of concept for reintroducing other species. In total, including newly hatched chicks that made it to fighting weight (more than 90% of them), Ward estimates there are over 300 kiwi in the hills surrounding Wellington.

“Ten years ago, [the] challenge probably would’ve [been] ‘Are we being too ambitious?’” he says. “I think now that challenge is one of complacency.

“We’re leaning into those relationships with our partners, with our iwi, our landowners, and our communities to explore what other taonga [property] species might be returned to these environments.”

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Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Cover image: Walsh performing a health check on a kiwi chick. This photo was one of National Geographic’s 2023 images of the year. Image courtesy of Robin Hammond/Capital Kiwi Project.

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Timecodes

(00:00) Kiwi return to Wellington

(04:28) The Cultural Significance of Kiwi

(08:49) Threats & Conservation History

(19:00) Building the Capital Kiwi Project

(27:46) Relationship with iwi and the tono

(31:54) Remarkable Results

(50:05) What Comes Next