Protect Our Gulf

We were honoured to be guests of the Protect Our Gulf campaign last week at a fundraising dinner.

Hosted by Te Motu vineyard on Waiheke Island, we dined on absolutely delicious kai with loyal supporters of the campaign, who are making huge efforts to stop Ports of Auckland dredging in the Hauraki Gulf and then dumping the dredgings in the moana south of Aotea Great Barrier Island.. Please visit their FB page Protect Our Gulf to show your support.

Glenn was the speaker for the evening and his descriptions of encounters with octopus and a humpback mother and calf deeply touched everyone’s emotions.

The following day we were joined by a group of people keen to experience our Hauroa Moana community monitoring from Ben and Ari’s beautiful yacht, Rosalie Claire. We motored round to Island Bay – beautiful above water, but underwater the bay is degraded and lonely with virtually no fish or invertebrate life. We were joined by Mark Russell, founder of Kelp Gardeners, a citizen science project on Waiheke to pilot controlling kina populations to reverse the phenomena known as kina barrens.

We still have a long way to go as a species in our relationship with the more-than-human world… but we must take heart that there are increasing numbers of people raising awareness and taking action on behalf of Gaia and all Life on board!