Katie Forno believes the Kaipara Moana Remediation Programme will contribute to cleaner freshwater, healthier ecosystems, and more awareness around sustainable farming practices.

Three years into working with KMR, Katie is enjoying her role and is happy to be a part of a unique initiative to restore the health and the mauri of the Kaipara Harbour.

After growing up in Māhurangi and spending a decade living and working in different parts of Aotearoa and travelling overseas, Katie now lives in Matakana Valley with her whānau. Katie whakapapa’s to Tōrere on the East Cape.

“It’s a kaupapa borne from the tangata of the Kaipara putting their pou in the ground and saying something needs to change. The Moana is suffering and we need to work together to help it.”

“It’s about all people of the Kaipara – tangata whenua, landowners, councils, NGO’s, schools, and normal everyday people joining together in a restoration project that will be generational.” As for her role as a KMR Field Advisor?

“We help landowners to define and accomplish their aspirations for their properties, specifically by facilitating fencing and planting. It is important to me because I feel like there is so much pressure on our environment and water is life.”

“Yet, so much of our fresh water and subsequently, our Moana, is polluted and struggling. On the other hand, we need to eat, and farmers need to earn a living. My hope is that I can help landowners to help the earth and that it makes a difference to both.”

The Forest Bridge Trust, where Katie works, helps connect farmers and landowners with funding – often secured from multiple funding sources – to fence off significant ecological sites such as native bush and wetlands.

Katie is an accredited Field Advisor for the KMR Programme and helps provide specialist advice to support KMR’s landowner grant scheme. A key part of the role is to target the reduction of sediment entering the Kaipara Moana through projects to retire and plant up waterways, regenerate native bush on steep land and afforest erodible hill country.