About

Waro (noun): coal, charcoal, carbon

The Waro Project aims to:

  • Investigate and present the effective mix of arrangements and benefits to achieve afforestation of [permanent] native forest on Māori land
  • Clarify the decision-making pathway/s for and with Māori landowners in carbon farming
  • Understand the perspective of emitters and their preferences for meeting their emissions liabilities

With the mānuka honey industry taking off and the Paris Agreement causing carbon prices to increase, earning an income from planting native trees may become lucrative. Māori land owners interested in sustainable development options are looking at native forest carbon farming to compliment other economic, environmental and cultural benefits flowing from letting indigenous plants grow on the whenua again.

This research project aims to identify the opportunities and barriers for Māori land that could be used for native plant reforestation and carbon farming.

East Coast hapū members and landowners have joined with Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust, Hikurangi Enterprises, and post-graduate students from Victoria University of Wellington to work together on an action research project supported by the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Research Programme (SLMACC) funded by the Ministry of Primary Industries.

This site includes information about the project, but more importantly, resources to provide accurate, user-friendly information to landowners.

“…each year we were reliant on what the share-market was doing, and what bonds were doing, in order to get income to operate the Trust, and still trying to grow that portfolio. So then to get a carbon cheque each year of – after tax – around $150,000, it is quite a significant amount for doing nothing different.”

Māori landowner

“I think our largest one is probably 100,000 units per year and the smallest one might be 5 to 10,000 units per year. So quite a range. Size in and of itself isn’t really a problem, it just depends what sort of order you need to fill.”

Large scale emitter
Fence in paddock