Te Winiwini Kingi

Te Winiwini Kingi (Te Waiariki Ngāti Kororā) is a kaumātua and environmentalist working to restore the habitats on his ancestral land.

This scientist profile is one of six featured in this group of resources that explore animal ethics with a kaupapa Māori approach. A downloadable PDF of the combined scientist profiles is available in both a bilingual and a te reo Māori version.

Waerea, waerea, tēnei ka mihi atu ki te kaupapa o te rā

Ko Whakairiora te maunga
Ko Horahora raua ko Ngunguru ngā awa
Ko Te Waiariki te hapu
Ko Kerepeti Te Peke te tupuna
Ka moe a Kerepeti Te Peke i a Ripeka Amos (Kimete) ka puta ki waho ko Mere
Ka moe a Mere i a Hone Wiremu Mahanga
Ka puta ki waho ēnei wāhine ko Riri rāua ko Peti
Ka moe a Riri i a Raniera Kopa ka puta ki waho ko Kupai, ko tōku whaea
Ka moe a Peti i a Hone Paraone Kingi ka puta ki waho tōku matua a Te Winiwini
Ka puta ki waho ko ahau, ko Te Winiwini Kingi
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

Winiwini is an elder who lives on his ancestral inherited lands (whenua tuku). He is a member of Te Waiariki Ngāti Kororā Ngāti Takapare, who claim mana whenua status over the coastal lands to the east of the city of Whangārei. Te Waiariki understand themselves as people of the rivers and the ngahere fed by those rivers, which flow east to the coast – from Ngunguru to the north, to Horahora, to Pātaua, to Taiharuru to the south.

Protecting what is left of the natural habitats

Winiwini grew up on his tupuna whenua (ancestral land) and returned to live there about 30 years ago when he had the opportunity to do so. Winiwini recalls his grandmother Riri telling him about her memory of the original trees on the uplands of their home areas (wā kāinga) as a young girl. Riri would have been born around 1900, which dates the destruction of those original Northland ecologies in the 20th century.

Since returning to live on the whenua, Winiwini has been working to protect what is left of the original forest cover and natural ecological habitats on his inherited land blocks. When the pioneer settlers cleared the ridges, they left the gullies alone. It’s here where snippets of precious original kauri bush habitats and ecologies still remain intact today – to some extent.

In order to help keep those remnants of the original bush healthy, Winiwini has resisted pressure to clear his block and put cows on it, since cows destroy the ground layers of the ngahere. Equally, clearing ngahere allows gorse to come away.

Our people had a connection with the ngahere. Our tūpuna were not farmers, we were never farmers, that was our problem – we were trying to be civilised by putting cows on our land. If you had cows, you were considered a wealthy person. If you were milking cows, you were in business. But did it really work for our people, especially out on the coast? No, it didn’t.

Winiwini Kingi

Winiwini refers to the poor fortunes that resulted following the pressure from government advisors for Northland Māori to farm their ancestral blocks of coastal lands. From about 1930 when cars arrived in Northland and drivable roads were built, cream collection switched from boat to truck, and those Māori farms became uneconomic overnight. Civic planning of the times was unconcerned about fairly including Māori communities in public goods such as roading access. Still today a century later, for the people of the rivers, building and maintaining private roads to access their land blocks remains difficult.

Rūrū and pekapeka

Two of the land animal species that are important in the local ngahere ecology are ruru/morepork (Ninox novae-zelandiae) and two species of pekapeka/bats – short-tailed and long-tailed. Rūrū are one of the main natural predators of the pekapeka.

In May 2023, Winiwini was part of a group from the Northland conservancy who attended the National Pekapeka (Native Bat) Conference held in Kirikiriroa Hamilton. The conference was hosted by Te Papa Atawhai Department of Conservation, with delegates from around the country.

Pekapeka colonies still survive around the country, but accurate knowledge is lacking of their size and distribution. Pekapeka conservation is still in the early stages in the Northland conservancy, which did not present a report at the conference. Tangata whenua elders like Winiwini are a vital part of projects of pekapeka conservation. These elders grew up and still live on the land – closely observing its natural features, including the remaining pekapeka colonies.

The importance of pekapeka to Māori ancestors of the north can be judged by the name of one of the most famous of all defended Māori pā of Tai Tokerau: Ruapekapeka – the bats’ nest.

Pekapeka are important animals of Aotearoa yet have little public awareness since few people have encountered them due to their nocturnal lifestyle.

As a natural predator of pekapeka, rūrū are also important animals in our ancestral ecologies. All the major pest predators found in the Northland bush endanger pekapeka – possums, rats, stoats and feral cats. Winiwini talks about watching a video at the conference.

Stoats finding the roost of the long-tail pekapeka and just going in there, picking what he wants, killing it and taking it away, then coming back later on to get another one … like a supermarket.

Winiwini Kingi

The behaviour of pekapeka is to keep warm in their roosts during the day, then they all leave together at dusk. Winiwini is monitoring one pekapeka colony at Tāheke Falls, Whareora, located a 30-minute drive north-east from the centre of Whangārei.

Once they leave the roost, they’re almost immediately up to 60 km per minute, so boom, they’re gone. The reason they fly so quick as soon as they leave is so the rūrū don’t get at them.

Winiwini Kingi

Winiwini is planning to follow a rūrū at dusk, hoping it will lead him to the rua pekapeka – the roost tree, such as an old hollowed-out pūriri – where the colony sleeps or stays in a state of torpor during the day.

It’s a matter of finding their roost – that’s the secret, which will unlock not only where I live but the whole area.

Winiwini Kingi

Kiore

Although Winiwini cannot remember his people eating kiore, he recalls his elders tying the fronds over the fruit of the kiekie to protect it from the kiore as it ripened so that they would be able to harvest it when it fully ripened.

They used to tie the top up when the hua [fruit] comes out. They used to tie it up until harvest time in September, just to protect it from the Māori kiore, but with the introduction of the ship rat and the Norwegian rat, those knots didn’t work because they chewed through it.

Winiwini Kingi