Often a safe harbour in times of need, two marae in Te Tauihu o Te Waka-a-Māui (top of the South Island) are now fully equipped to become part of the official Emergency Management response should disaster strike.

On Friday, Ipu Ohotata emergency containers were blessed and launched at Waikawa Marae and Hauhunga Marae in Marlborough, following more than a year of training and planning.

The journey started toward the end of 2019 when Te Puni Kōkiri, Civil Defence and Marlborough Emergency Management started planning Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) training for Māori wardens and the Māori and iwi communities in Marlborough.

“The first training made up part of our wider Marlborough Māori Civil Defence Plan and was held in March 2020, literally a week before lockdown,” says Dr Lorraine Eade, Pouwhakahaere Rauemi at Te Kotahi o Te Tauihu Charitable Trust, a collaboration of the eight Te Tauihu iwi.

“As it turned out, just a week later these volunteers were the first port of call to assist in providing kai and other welfare need to our Māori communities in Marlborough.”

Further support from Marlborough Emergency Management for marae to develop their own Emergency Management Plans came in March 2021 along with Co-ordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) training.

Against this backdrop and acknowledging that iwi had been strong contributors to various emergency situations across Te Tauihu, including the Pigeon Valley fire response in Tasman in 2019, once Te Kotahi o Te Tauihu Trust was established in February 2021, it was handed the mandate to produce a consistent emergency response across the Te Tauihu rohe (Marlborough, Nelson, Tasman), resulting in the Te Tauihu Emergency Management Strategy.

“It has been a massive effort and really inspirational to see how mana whenua, iwi and marae have come together and partnered with others to make a difference and ensure that we are prepared to manaaki and look after our communities when disaster strikes,” says Dr Eade.

“Along with Marlborough, we’ve now also partnered with Nelson Tasman Emergency Management to ensure that our strategy aligns across the rohe.”

Last year, Te Kotahi applied for National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) funding to help realise some of the aspirations iwi held in relationship to Emergency Management; this included the production of eight Ipu Ohotata, or emergency containers, geographically spread across Te Tauihu. Philanthropic foundation RATA supported the project also, contributing 50 per cent of the costs.

“The launch of the first two containers recognise that these marae have completed their Marae Emergency Management Plans, have developed their specialist response team who will respond to any emergency event and who have been CIMS4 and EOC trained, know the EM system and can feed into EM readiness, response and recovery systems.”

“We’re really proud to be at this point, to know that we are prepared to assist whānau and be officially linked into the EM network. We look forward to this Ipu Ohotata network being in place across the motu, from Wairau to Mohua.”

Waikawa Marae Kaiwhakahaere Allanah Burgess acknowledged the relationships that had been built and will continue to grow.

“That can only benefit our wider community,” she told those gathered. “[The Ipu Ohotata] acknowledges the role that we as whānau, as a marae, as haukāinga, play in the resilience and value of our hapori during an emergency.

“The training and the opportunity of having this new space, gives us the upper hand to control and manage what happens within our hapori and the wider rohe. As mana whenua, we know our community, we understand our whānau … we are the best people for the job. Responding to community need is not new to us, but just imagine but what we are capable of doing now.”

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