RAGLAN: New Zealand's most eco-friendly town?

By Waveney Warth

Raglan has plenty to boast about. Photo credit: Raglan Shuttle

LISTEN TO:  RAGLAN EPISODE 1
LISTEN TO:  RAGLAN EPISODE 2 

My mates in Raglan (Whaingaroa) are totally convinced I should move there. It's the best place in Aotearoa they say, world class surf,  stunning scenery... very drinkable coffee, and a ready-made connected community of  people who care - although its worth noting that when the surf's up those same locals have quite the feisty side.  Last year Rick Thorpe, one of my Raglan zero-waste-community-enterprise brothers, decided that Tim and I needed to do a road trip to visit the town an tell its remarkable sustainability story, 'there's an insane amount going on here, it's mean.'  A road trip?? Aren't we just two happy little audiophiles in our Auckland studio? Then another friend who has a mint permaculture farm just out of Whaingaroa invited us to stay and that was that.  I imagined we'd cruise down, do two or three interviews and then kick back and enjoy some combo involving local organic food, beer, surf and panoramic views. I don't know if he planned it, but after we were hooked in, Rick emailed me every few days with more projects and more people that we absolutely had to include - 'These guys are world leaders' 'These guys were doing it before it even had a name' 'These guys have mobilised half the town'.  Before I knew it we had nine interviewees.  Which quickly became two episodes and three days / two nights away.  
 
So Tim and I hit the road and met lots of apparently ordinary people doing some 'hang on what now?!' incredible things. At How to Save the World we only want to share pathways to sustainability that you can achieve. Usually that means focusing on lifestyle choice, buying  power and citizen advocacy.  What's happening in Whaingaroa is something else entirely, but just as achievable. Its little groups of people moulding their local environment - away from the standard ensemble of energy and food shipped in; waste shipped out; waterways degrading and native species struggling  (i.e. your tangible local example of our global climate-changing-extinction-causing tricky situation). The projects we investigated, some twenty years old, others brand new, are actually heaving the town’s entire infrastructure and physical environment toward a regenerative thriving circular economy.  What we found out is best listened to straight from the people's mouths who are involved but a couple of themes are worth noting here.

• Action emerged when people stopped thinking that the council or government should be the ones to fix everything.
• Not much happens without a mandate from the community members - no show ponies here - lots of kōrero. 
• Mana whenua have been waiting for us all to catch on and have centuries of observations and knowledge ...something to keep in mind when deciding to 'start' something.

On that note, we would like to mihi to the many whānau, hapū and iwi of Whaingaroa. Ko Karioi te maunga, ko Whaingaroa te moana, ko Tainui te waka. The hapū of Whaingaroa have a long history of advocacy, transformation and enabling, notably whaea Eva Rickard, tēnā koutou.  In our interview with Rick he shares a quote from the whaea that over twenty years on still rings true, “Don’t wait for permission to do something about it.”  
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Eva Rickard, change maker, "Don't wait for permission to do something about it."
​Photo credit: NZ History

We share stories from:
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Raglan Naturally, www.raglannaturally.co.nz. 
Episode 1
The community led town plan that was 20 years in the making and recently adopted by the Waikato District Council as the town’s official long term plan.
The plan galvanises efforts to redesign everything from waste water treatment (must be processed through a living wetland); rubbish (must be eliminated or minimised and used to create a circular economy) and even energy (currently exploring local generation opportunities).
All of which are firsts (or first equals in timing or scale) in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Interview with Gabrielle Parson, Raglan Naturally coordinator and Raglan Community Board member.

Xtreme Zero Waste, www.xtremezerowaste.org.nz
Episode 1
​The community owned resource recovery centre that prevents 75-80% of Raglan’s “rubbish” (read “resources”) from going to landfill.  Only one in seven members of the public come here to drop off waste; everyone else comes here (instead of the warehouse, or Mitre 10) to shop.  The centre is the second largest employer in the area, injecting 1.6 million in wages into this small local economy of 5000 people.
Interview with Rick Thorpe Xtreme cofounder and Innovations Manager. To get ideas and support for your town check out Aotearoa’s Zero Waste Network, www.zerowaste.co.nz,
 

Waveney at Xtreme Zero Waste, Raglan's resource recovery centre. Photo credit: Tim Batt. 

Raglan Community Energy
Episode 1
A community enterprise that has Whaingaroa on its way to be Aotearoa’s first energy independent town. The partnership with WEL energy, www.wel.co.nz/sustainability/community-initiatives, plans to generate 4-5 Megawatts of solar energy from a community owned 5 hectare solar farm. The profits from the sale of power will go fund community projects with a social or environmental benefit and enable free or discounted power to those who need it. This is in addition to Raglan Local Energy, www.raglanlocalenergy.co.nz which is already putting solar panels on roof tops in town.  
Interview incorporated above... two birds with one stone,  Rick is a coordinator of ‘Raglan Local Energy’ To get ideas and support for your town check out Aotearoa’s Community Energy Network, www.communityenergy.org.nz.
 
Whaingaroa Harbour Care, www.harbourcare.co.nz
Episode 1
In 1995, Whaingaroa Harbour had the worst recreational catch rate of any harbour in NZ taking on average 18 hours just to catch one fish.  Two million trees later, the harbour is one of the best in New Zealand and it’s now possible to catch your fish quota within 1 hour! The project has had one of the most successful engagement rates with farmers and fishers in the country.  Interview with Fiona Edwards, Whaingaroa Harbour Care Project manager
 
Kari-oi Maunga ki te Moana, www.karioiproject.co.nz
Episode 1
​A community led epic trapping project to provide a safe habitat for grey faced petrels and other New Zealand sea birds tracking toward extinction. People said it couldn’t be done, but this group of 350 volunteers check 2048 traps every two weeks, and are transforming Kari-oi Maunga in a remarkable way.  Interview with Kristel van Houte,  Kari-oi Maunga ki te Moana  Project Manager. If you are inspired to make a difference in your local community, on land or sea, you could start by checking in with your local Forest and Bird group, www.forestandbird.org.nz/branches or learning more about Aotearoa’s predator free movement here: www.pf2050.co.nz/the-predator-free-movement.

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Raglan / Whaingaroa nestled between Whaingaroa Harbour and Kari-oi Maunga.
​Photo credit: Waikato District Council

Local food resilience
Episode 2
Growing and eating local food is arguably one of the most important things we can do to secure a regenerative future, and Whaingaroa / Raglan boasts an impressive cluster of local projects including a government sponsored project exploring national options for food resilience project; a seed saving project to save locally loved seeds from the area; ‘crop swap’ a public event, held regularly, for anyone to share their homegrown surplus food; and an extraordinary group collecting food waste from each and every Raglan home to create a high grade compost (that can be used to grow more local food!) Interview with Liz Stanway,  Whaingaroa Environment Centre committee member and Organics Team Leader at Xtreme Zero Waste. 

• Link to Food Waste Collection service
• Link to Whaingaroa Environment Centre's projects 
• Connect with Crop Swap on their Facebook page 

Raglan locals enjoy Crop Swap, a free exchange of homegrown surplus. 
Photo credit: Raglan Chronicle

Hang on wait! Why is growing and eating local food arguably one of the most important things we can do to secure a regenerative future?? Well there are more reasons than you can point a stick at. Here's five. 

1. It reduces your food miles. Both from what you buy and by increasing the opportunities for food producers to sell locally (and therefore less imperative to sell internationally). If you feel you don't need another reason other than lowering carbon emissions and avoiding climate caused calamities  - feel free to skip ahead. 
2. It removes the blindfold! - lets consumers see how their food is produced and gives them the chance to decide if they want to buy from that producer or not (oh! this one running a bulldozer through my local national park nooooo!...but THIS one's farming methods are cleaning up the streams. Hooray). 
3. It encourages biodiversity. If we want to eat a wide range of delicious food AND eat local it allows farmers safer ways to transition from export led mono-crops to biodiversity on their farms. Biodiversity is one of the key ways avoid herbicide, pesticide and synthetic fertilisers and let nature restore the soil and in turn give us longer than 53 years left to farm. 
4. It gives us humans lots of extra nutrients which in turn helps to keep us well and all the better to fight climate change with. Local food is usually more nutrient dense because nutrients from food start to decrease from the moment they leave the garden; and also because well travelled food is usually less nutritious on the day it was picked anyway. (because Fruit and vegetable have been selected over the last 100 years for their abilities to travel well without bruising or going off - which has inadvertently meant that we haven't been particularly breeding for the nutrient profiles of food, which have been reliably decreasing for some time. Its also because of how modern farming methods reduce nutrient profiles in soils, which can happen locally too of course, but if we eat local we might be able to support farming practises reversing that trend, i.e. spray free / regen ag /  permaculture / organic / biodynamic). 
5. It helps create a resilient local economy more capable of weathering international supply chain shocks, provide local jobs and keep local profits circulating with in the regional. The benefits are like a feedback loop on a sound system - infinitely amplified. A sustainable future isn't so easy with brittle supply chains and local "money" (read local '"ability to provide for each other; give back; do cool stuff for the planet") constantly sucked away to some unknown destination. 

Marae celebrates joining the Para Kore programme. 
Photo credit: Te Ao Māori News

Para Kore , www.parakore.maori.nz
Episode 2
​Para Kore means Zero Waste in te reo.  It is also a for Maori by Maori programme that came out of Whaingaroa / Raglan in 2009 and now has national impact. It’s goal is to support all marae to be working toward zero waste by 2025.  Incredibly 449 marae have joined and over 500 tonnes of waste that would have gone to landfill has been completely avoided. The Para Kore programme works with marae to increase the reuse, recycling and composting of materials thereby helping to reduce the extraction of natural resources and raw materials from Papatūānuku.  Interview with Jacqui Forbes, Para Kore cofounder and General Manager. 

A household’s role in creating a sustainable region
Episode 2
Our hosts during our Raglan stay were Clare and David Whimmer, a household of adept permaculturalists living 20 mins out of town.  They kindly agreed to let us interview them as we were blown away by how they lived and inspired to see a tangible example of people living in and enjoying a thriving, sustainable region... and oh my the food was good. 

(From left) Waveney, two lovely wwoofers, David, Clare and Tim all enjoying an off the farm dinner and would-be-award-winning home brew beer. Photo Credit: Matthew Luxon

To all those who took the time to talk with us, and who are giving everything they've got to create better outcomes for tomorrow, 

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.