A multigenerational effort to restore a unique mussel in the Marlborough Sounds is helping a local iwi reconnect with a sacred species that has fed them for generations.
The Kia houkura te Kopakopa project was a collaboration between Marlborough District Council, Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui, Port Marlborough and the Cawthron Institute to restore the purple ribbed mussel kopakopa to its original habitat.
Kopakopa was endemic to Te Tauihu (top of the south), and was once a key source of kaimoana for Te Ātiawa. But habitat loss had seen their numbers decline throughout Tōtaranui/Queen Charlotte Sound.
Te Ātiawa environmental adviser Renee Love told councillors on Thursday that project aimed to combine matauranga Māori and western science and reconnect Te Ātiawa whanau and rangatahi with their maritime roots.
Uri of Te Ātiawa packed the council chamber’s public gallery, as Kopakopa was handed out around the council table so councillors could see the mussel up close.
Love said Te Ātiawa’s kaumatua were old enough to remember when Kopakopa had been a plentiful source of kai. They knew where kopakopa were found, when to harvest, and how to use it.
Kopakopa was given to sick people and pregnant wahine as a form of rongoā (medicine), she said.
“We realised quite quickly that we definitely had a generational knowledge gap,” Love said.
“Our kaumatua lived on kopakopa ... [but] nearly all of our rangatahi didn’t have a clue what they were.”
Council principal coastal scientist Katie Littlewood said the project team selected three sites where kopakopa had been collected to test habitat restoration methods. The sites were Te Rae o Karaka (Karaka Point), Wedge Point, and Tahuahua (Blackwood) Bay.
Each site had seen different levels of decline, Littlewood said. Kopakopa were still plentiful in Tahuahua Bay, but had decreased significantly at Wedge Point.
The team used natural fibre taura (rope) made from tī kōuka (cabbage tree) to recreate a kopakopa habitat. The method was inspired by similar restoration work on green lip mussels in the Bay of Plenty, Littlewood said.
“Healthy kopakopa cannot become healthy again without a healthy ecosystem,” she said.
Te Ātiawa whānau, rangatahi, community members and project partners gathered to weave the taura over two meetings at Waikawa Marae earlier this year, and they were installed at the sites on August 13.
At each site, the taura were placed differently, either drilled into bedrock crevices, floating vertically like seaweed, or floating horizontally like a traditional mussel farm line.
The vertical taura were “quite beautiful when you see it in real life, [as it] swivels around and moves with the tide”, Littlewood said.
The first monitoring visit on September 24 showed early signs of success, Littlewood said.
Algae had begun to grow across all of the sites, and a seahorse had moved into one of the taura at Te Rae o Karaka, which was “really exciting”, she said.
“Seahorses need seaweed to live, and at that site there is none,” she said.
While it was still too early to see whether kopakopa would “colonise” the taura, Littlewood was optimistic.
“I just think if I was a tiny little spat and I came across that beautiful little fluffy habitat, man, I’ll be snuggled up in there safe and warm living my best life,” she said.
The project had received support from Port Marlborough, the Cawthron Institute, and the University of Otago, Littlewood said.
She invited councillors to visit the sites later in the month.
Several councillors praised the project, with Councillors Raylene Innes and David Croad saying they were excited to visit the sites.
Māori ward councillor and Te Ātiawa uri Allanah Burgess said it had been an “absolute honour and privilege” to be part of the project team.
“This kaupapa is obviously really close to my heart,” she said.
Burgess said that while she never learned to collect kopakopa, this project had allowed her daughter to inherit that knowledge, which she can pass on to her tamariki and mokopuna.
As the councillors unanimously voted to accept the report, members of Te Ātiawa broke out in waiata, joined by Littlewood, Love, and Burgess.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
