Sponges and sea slugs in Rakino rock pools.
Category: citizen science
Easter Weekend 2026 on Rakino
It was a busy Easter Weekend; so busy I’ve only just found time to upload photos and document it!
There was always going to be snorkeling, so putting an Ecofest overlay on it was no hardship. Friends from Auckland Debs and Andrew were anchored in Woody Bay so we press-ganged them into a snorkel, along with Sharon, and Sam. The water did not have the best clarity, but it was good to get in a late season snork. Sam impressed with no wetsuit… I didn’t manage to get any good photos from the event due to poor water clarity.
I did manage to get some good shots a month later in early May however; it seemed to be the season for seahares, and there was a particularly handsome white speckled seahare perambulating around in the hiwihiwi grotto…
We also had a fantastically successful Easter market day sheltering behind the fire shed, which was a great venue. I comprehensively failed to get any photos, but can report that heaps of Rakino-ites turned up, and plenty of money was raised for Westpac Rescue Helicopter Trust, and marine conservation. Many thanks to Natalie who organised the event.
Hauraki Gulf Islands Network Hui 2026
The first day of the HGIN hui got off to a leisurely start, Auckland luxuriating in the warmth of late May sun, and a splendid day for a ferry ride to Waiheke Island to meet up with other gulf island representatives for our third Hui at Waiheke Resources Trust. It was a smaller group this meet-up but great to catch up again with Audrey from Kawau, Kristin from WRT, and finally meet Zoe in real life.
Our first activity was in the company of the wonderful Huhana Davis. Her workshop ‘Sacred Spaces in Public Places’ took us on a mini tour of Waiheke, from the beachfront at Matiatia to the silver sand of Onetangi and special places in between. I found it extremely thought-provoking, and it reinforced how strongly I feel about preservation of ‘culture’ on our islands, and the necessity to figuratively maintain a pou in the sand with regard to how our communities respect each other, and our environment. Visiting the three carved pou behind the Waiheke Library also inspired the thought that we could literally create a pou.
The second visit of the day was out to the Island Waste Collective to catch up with Keith Enoka. Keith’s team are responsible for reducing the waste which is transported off Waiheke. They reduce, repurpose, and recycle in an enviable fashion. Keith is ever-inventive, and the premises have grown impressively since my first visit in 2024. There are lessons to be learned with regard to waste reduction on Rakino, and the intention is to enact those lessons this year, with a community composting trial set to get underway. We also ran into Denisa, for a timely chat about moth plant eradication.
This was followed up by a debrief back at the Waiheke Resources Trust before we headed out for dinner. I had to get back to Auckland in order to organise myself for the next day, a trip to Rakino! The ferry was running a tad late, but I entertained myself listening to the kororā coming ashore at Matiatia. I could see their eyes gleaming in the dark as they swam ashore before heading up the beach into the rocks, braying like mad donkeys.
Day two began very early, lugging my pack in the dark up to the bus stop to head into town for an early ferry trip, in order to be at Matiatia on time for the water taxi ride to Rakino Island. This is the first time the Hui has taken a trip off Waiheke to visit another island, and Rakino was chosen for the inaugural visit. We had a full boat of 15, so the pressure was on… Most of the team had never visited our island, and the group was made up of people from a number of nationalities, all involved in environmental restoration, and waste reduction, as well as Kylee Matthews, chair of Waiheke Local Board, and Nicola Strawbridge, waste reduction advisor from Auckland Council.
We were met at the wharf by Bert and Simon, armed with 6 scrounged caulking guns, ready for the first activity of the day, eDNA water sampling at Home Bay. Marta presided over this. It involved taking samples from two stream sites and forcing a litre of water through filters in order to collect DNA information on all the critters that reside in the stream. The caulking guns are a necessity as it gets progressively harder to force the water through the 5 micron filters as the ‘information’ builds up and collects. Water clarity is imperative as too much murkiness clogs the delicate filters. This is pretty exciting, and we can’t wait to find out what lives in this stream. The process is not inexpensive, and the data will be valuable. Many thanks to Laura for giving Bert last minute permission to conduct the testing at Home Bay.
While everyone else was getting their hands dirty, I was chatting with Nicola, Kristin, and Kylee about island issues; predominantly getting food out of household waste and cardboard out of the recycling with a view to supporting Lyndsey’s composting initiative, but also dealing with the interminable moth plant problem which gets worse every year. Some good ideas were tossed around, and some commitments were made.
We headed up to Bert’s for a slap up picnic lunch, organised by the fabulous Kathy from Kai Conscious at the Waiheke Sustainability Center. Kai Conscious divert tonnes of food from going to landfill every year and redistribute it, or convert it into delicious shared Friday lunches. Bert’s impressive planting endeavour was much admired.
Following lunch, we marched up the hill in order to meet up with John down at the nursery. I took an inadvertent shortcut on my backside while more circumspect visitors chose a dignified entrance. John took us through the nursery, talking us through his process for ramped up tree production in order to meet the needs of larger block owners who want to do a regeneration planting on their land.
In recent times John has refined his growing process in order to get maximum use out off the spacial limitations of the nursery. The nursery has all its water needs met thanks to a local board grant for water tanks, and volunteers Bert and Kevin assist with the watering, which is a time-consuming job. The trees are all looking healthy, and some will be heading out for community planting this King’s Birthday Weekend.
The advantage of buying trees grown on the island is that the seeds are eco-sourced as much as possible from the geographical area of the gulf islands, but most importantly they are guaranteed pest-free. The risk of plague skinks and argentine ants is always top of mind when bringing vegetation to Rakino, and all plants must be well soaked in advance of transportation.
Judi turned up with impeccable timing to offer a lift to any folk who really couldn’t face another uphill trek, and we all headed back down to the wharf to farewell our visitors. The sea looked a bit choppy, so I hope the trip back to Waiheke wasn’t too lumpy.
I hope everyone enjoyed the day visit, and it’s clear there is tangible value in forging stronger connections between our islands. It was also excellent to have representatives from council visit Rakino.
Many thanks to Zoe and WRT for organising the Hui and to Waiheke Local Board for supporting it. I’m already looking forward to next years meet-up.
Revelations
This is republished from The Revelator, an excellent online resource of stories for anyone interested in the environment and conservation/restoration.
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The Seduction of Despair, the Persistence of Possibility
January 9, 2026 – by Rick MacPherson
Some mornings despair arrives before coffee.
Not dramatically, not like a crashing wave or a siren, but quietly, like a fog: soft at first, then everywhere. It shows up on my phone, in headlines, on social media: policies rolled back. Protections stripped. Science defunded. Expertise ridiculed. Species disappearing. A political climate that feels more handheld flamethrower than democratic process. And beneath all of that, the quiet exhaustion of living through cascading crises without a pause button.
It’s especially loud now, at the turn of the year, a time when we’re told to make plans, set goals, and imagine better futures. But imagining can feel dangerous when the world feels fragile. The idea of resolve can seem almost laughable.
Despair is seductive because it offers a strangely rational refuge: If everything is collapsing, then nothing is required of you anymore. And there’s relief — brief, dangerous — in imagining the story is already over.
But despair isn’t neutral. It doesn’t just describe reality. It shapes it. Despair hands momentum to the forces counting on our fatigue. To the industries that benefit when we withdraw. To leaders who flourish when we believe we are powerless. It masquerades as honesty. Underneath it is permission — not to feel, but to quit.
Why We Stay in the Work
There have been days — fieldwork days, policy days, loss-of-another-species days — when I thought: Maybe the wild world will outlive us. Maybe the most we can do is bear witness to the ending. But then I think of future generations forced to inherit a planet stripped of its complexity and wildness, and bearing witness feels too much like quiet betrayal.
And then something interrupts. A headline — quiet, almost buried — about wolves returning or a coastal ecosystem recovering faster than expected. A student’s email saying they never realized nature was part of their story too, even from a city block surrounded by concrete. A grainy livestream of coral spawning — imperfect, but undeniable evidence that life is still trying. A community cleanup that began with six hesitant strangers and somehow became a recurring ritual people now protect on their calendars. A message from someone I’ll never meet saying they felt less alone because I didn’t give up.
And then, perhaps most powerful, I sit in a folding chair at a community meeting. The room isn’t glamorous. There’s no dramatic soundtrack. People are tired. Some are angry. Some are afraid. No one knows everything. But they showed up anyway. And in that small, imperfect room, I remember: Despair isolates. Community builds momentum.
We Are Not at the End — We Are at the Fork
This is a threshold moment. The kind future generations will study — not because we were certain, but because the uncertainty cornered us into choosing who we were willing to be.
History is full of inflection points when the future could have veered toward collapse or reinvention. And in those moments, there were always people who refused to leave the page blank: people who showed up tired. People who acted without guarantees. People who believed — not because the outcome was certain, but because living without trying felt unbearable.
That’s us now. Not the first generation to fight for wildlife, rivers, forests, or ocean. Not the last. But the generation with the least time to hesitate.
So what do we do when despair feels stronger than resolve? We don’t banish it. We don’t pretend we’re immune. We learn to feel it — and then move anyway.
Here’s how we keep going — not perfectly, but sustainably.
1. Shrink the Horizon.
Not everything needs to be solved at planetary scale. When the global feels unbearable, go local. This isn’t evasion, it’s strategic retreat. When we successfully restore one stream, one prairie, one forest patch, one shoreline, we break the logic of despair that says our efforts are futile. We create our own momentum. Small work is not small if it moves the world forward.
2. Build Belonging, Not Just Awareness.
Loneliness is one of despair’s most reliable accomplices. Hope doesn’t thrive alone. Find your people — the conservationists, scientists, artists, kids, elders, divers, farmers, fishers, hikers, hunters, dreamers, pragmatists — anyone who still believes a living planet is worth fighting for.
Community transforms despair from a boulder into a load shared. Show up to talks. Host a nature walk. Make space for questions, grief, curiosity, laughter, failure, and trying again. Movements don’t survive because they are correct. They survive because they are connected.
3. Let Awe Recalibrate You.
Get on your belly at the edge of a tidepool and watch barnacles open, each one waiting for the right moment to feed as the tide breathes in. Watch ants rebuild a colony after rain. Follow animal tracks in the snow. Stand beside a river and notice its pull. Watch a storm build over a lake and feel how water holds mood and memory. Plant native grasses and discover how soil — quiet, unglamorous soil — becomes an ecosystem. Grab a map and trace the flight paths of migrating birds overhead. Watch a livestream of a loud, chaotic romp of giant river otters in the Amazon and feel how wildness doesn’t apologize for taking up space.
Awe doesn’t erase the grief, but it reminds us why grief exists in the first place: because we love something worth protecting.
4. Act Anyway.
Even when discouraged. Even when unsure. Even when afraid. Action is not the opposite of despair — it is the antidote that makes despair bearable.
Write. Vote. Volunteer. Donate. Protest. Teach. Repair. Create. Speak up in rooms where silence is easy. Hope grows where footsteps repeat.
5. Rest. Seriously.
Burnout doesn’t make you a martyr. It makes you absent. Rest isn’t quitting; it’s recharging the part of you that refuses to give up.
Even ecosystems rest: Seasons shift, fires reset forests, tides withdraw, storms spend themselves. Your rest is part of the rhythm, not a deviation from it. Rest doesn’t pause the movement. It preserves the mover.
The Persistence of Possibility
Here’s a truth: Despair is honest.
Hope is honest, too. The difference is that hope participates. Hope has calluses. Hope stumbles and keeps going. Hope is the quiet refusal to surrender the future. The living world is not gone. And neither are we. This story isn’t finished. We are still writing it… species by species, action by action, community by community.
So as we step into 2026, maybe the resolution isn’t flashy or tidy. Maybe it’s this: Show up. For the wild. For each other. For the future. Some days that will mean attending hearings. Some days that will mean protecting your rest. Some days it will simply mean refusing to say “It’s too late” even when despair feels convincing.
Hope isn’t something we wait for. It’s a discipline we practice.
And as we cross into this new year — with uncertainty in one hand and possibility in the other — we make a quiet, stubborn promise: We will not hand the living world over to despair. Not this year. Not while we are here. Not while there’s still something left to protect.
Snorks 2!
Four more days of recent snorkeling on Rakino Island.. Other critters seen but not photographed, (or not photographed well!) an eagle ray, and a leatherjacket. I’m determined to get a better image of the hiwihiwi next time.
You won’t see much in the way of pictures of snapper here, not because there aren’t juvenile snapper in the rocky reef zone, but because they aren’t an indicator of reef health. We’re more interested in the diversity of other species, and I’m especially interested in the uncharismatic little guys; the chiton, limpets, and dorids. What we’ve seen over the last few weeks of snorkeling is that the reef area isn’t too horrible; the steady decline of the Hauraki Gulf has been relentlessly documented for a long time and now maybe it’s time to start to try and tell a more positive story.
The addition of the High Protection Area at the Noises potentially marks a turning point for the eastern Rakino reef and coastal areas. The worst case scenario would be to see a line of recreational fishers sitting in their boats just off the edge of the HPA between Rakino and The Noises.
I’m hopeful that we’ll see even more diversity in the next few years instead, and maybe one day an extension of the HPA over to the Rakino coastline. Regardless, we’ll continue to document the changes.
Snorks!
Images of some recent snorkeling in the rocky reefs of Rakino. Many, many thanks to the Waiheke Local Board for funding the underwater camera so we can continue to document the flora and fauna of underwater Rakino.
Kororā and other cool things.
It’s kororā breeding season on Rakino, and there is evidence of many burrows around the coastline. Some of them are in areas where people and dogs frequent also, so Waiheke Local Board have generously funded signage as a reminder to be aware of of little blue penguin presence. These can be found in 5 hotspots for penguin activity on Rakino, Woody Bay, Home Bay, and Māori Garden Bay. There are also many burrows uphill from the coast, on private property, so please ensure dogs are kept under control at all times, as per the Rakino dog rules.
Aside from all the kororā activity, there are some cool critters in the rock pools, which seem to be flourishing right now.
King’s Birthday Weekend 2025
We set off to Rakino with a number of tasks to undertake; a rubbish audit, water testing with Bert, and penguin sign construction. We ended up achieving the first two tasks, making some progress on signage, and taking on a few extra jobs besides. All to the good; a roaring northerly extended our stay by a couple of days and we didn’t mind at all.
You can read about the rubbish audit here https://www.rakino.org.nz/2025/06/08/rakino-waste-audit/ and I’m confident Bert will report on the stream and pond testing in due course.
The penguin signs are a work in progress, so hopefully Matariki long weekend will see them installed, FINALLY.
The coolest thing that happened to me was sighting a live little blue penguin for the first time ever on Rakino. Usually I just document dead kororā, so I was really happy to finally see a young’un, hunkered down under a rock ledge in the vicinity of Maori Garden Bay. There are plentiful penguin tracks around the coast currently, with many double tracks heading out into the tide, indicating parents off fishing for the day. Please, dog owners, ensure your dogs are within sight and under control at all times.
I also got to photograph a kākā at John and Carolyn MacKenzies. Accounts over the weekend are of up to five of them skraarking around overhead, which is pretty exciting for a kākāphile like myself.
A couple of weekend downers; the moth plant infestation has reached epic almost out of control proportions, and the pods are beginning to split. Land owners with moth plant are going to be removing seedlings for years to come, as will their neighbours. Here are the rules for moth plant on Rakino and Waiheke.. https://www.tiakitamakimakaurau.nz/protect-and-restore-our-environment/pests-in-auckland/pest-search/Araser
The second bummer was the burgeoning bloom of clay sediment out into Maori Garden Bay which exacerbated as the rain intensified. This was particularly heartbreaking for me, as it is in the same area as our little blue penguin sighting, and also the numerous penguin tracks we had seen the previous day. It’s unacceptable to cause this level of environmental damage on Rakino, and should have been anticipated and mitigated.
Generally an excellent week spent hanging out though, some tasty pizza dinners cooked by Kate as she refines her offerings in anticipation of the Bay Belle floating pizzeria, https://www.instagram.com/baybellenz/
and many sociable evenings spent with all our island friends. I can’t tell a lie though; the rubbish audit was way too much fun.
Hauraki Gulf Islands Network Hui #2 2025
In early May, Montana and Marta from Waiheke Resources Trust visited Rakino to catch up with last years inaugural hui participants, and any other interested Rakino-ites.
The main focus of the visit was to have a look at a couple of the wetland areas Bert has been water testing in, take a look at the invertebrates found in these areas, but also talk about any other initiatives we might be keen to instigate.
A lively discussion was held on Bert’s deck; most especially around the possibility of introducing a community composting system with a view to starting a community garden. Bert had initiated this part of the conversation, and unbeknownst to me this is a passion of Lyndsey’s, so I was very happy that Simon had made a last minute post on the community FB page, as Lyndsey turned up like a whirlwind of enthusiasm for the potential of this project.
We then headed down to investigate Bert’s wetland, followed by a visit to Hanna and Craig’s pond. I can report there are vast quantities of water boatmen in the pond, and no shortages of mosquito larvae on Rakino.
The Hui was held on Waiheke again this year, at the Waiheke Sustainability Center where WRT are based. Participants from Aotea, Kawau, Waiheke, and Rakino attended. This year Simon, Lyndsey, and I self-selected to attend.
There were four main workshops, firstly a tuition in using GIS tools to track pest animal and weed control, as well as volunteer hours. This is a useful tool for recording as it can be quickly utilised for data reports, but also demonstrating to council their funding is being well spent. I cannot tell a lie; the feature that received the most admiration was an excellent widget that demonstrated before and after visuals of planting and wetland restorations, with the sideways movement of a cursor. I’m going to twist Simon’s arm into adding this feature somewhere on this website even if it kills him. Thank you to James Siddle for the presentation.
This was followed by a workshop on engaging with Mana Whenua, presented by Kim Collins from Waiheke Marine Project.
Regretfully the intended Mountains to Sea run snorkeling trip around Rakino and Otata organised for Rakino and mana whenua rangatahi had to be postponed then cancelled this year due to inclement weather, but will be planned again for early next year, hopefully during the summer school holidays. It will be a great snorkeling day out for anyone aged 10 to 25, with a little bit of citizen science thrown in also.
This is a good low key starting point for Rakino..
The last workshop of the day was the one Lyndsey was hanging out for, Waste Auditing and Surveying, with Denisa Kolouchova from WCRRP. https://islandwastecollective.co.nz/waiheke-community-resource-recovery-park/
This was a really valuable workshop and evolved into a discussion about how we can deal with the problem of food and cardboard waste on Rakino. I’ve been interested in this problem for a while, as you can see here;
https://www.rakino.org.nz/2024/03/04/the-rubbish-report/ but it really needs a passionate permanent resident to drive any project like this, and happily Lyndsey and Bert are those people. I’ll be a great cheerleader though!
This will take some of the load off Tom and Pat, and benefit the whole community. More to come…….
It was an early start for us on day two as we were traveling from Auckland. Montana cooked us a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs courtesy of Kai Conscious Cafe, and then we powered into the Septic Tank System Workshop, with Marta, and Craig Brown from CBC Wastewater.
Septic tanks cause trepidation, no denying it. I suspect the majority of septic tank owners know very little about how they work, and how to maintain them so as to avoid great expense. I knew next to nothing about them despite having lived with one for seven years a few decades ago. I now have a pretty decent understanding about the inner workings of the scariest things on the island. I’ve looked into the maw and found it mainly harmless, and not that stinky.
Craig was a great speaker with a compelling style of presentation. If you want the levels of scum/water/sludge measured in your septic tank, I now know how to do it, and what the ratio should be. That doesn’t mean I’m going to though…
I think he’d be a great guy to get over to Rakino for a septic tank workshop some time in the future.
We finished up with a session at the Waiheke Library, with a plan to move ahead with our various island projects, and a commitment to meet again next year, maybe on Kawau or Aotea. An inspiring couple of days, great to meet up again with the representatives from other islands, and make some new contacts and friends.
Many thanks to Waiheke Resources Trust for their great organisation, the Kai Conscious Cafe for their delicious food, the presenters who gave their time and energy, and the participants for showing commitment to a really cool initiative. See you all again next year!
Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Islands Hui, 2024
In early May, Bert, Dylan, and I hosted a day visit to Rakino by the Waiheke Resources Trust.
The WRT staff were visiting Kawau, Aotea, and Rakino as part of their mission to create community driven links between the four Gulf Islands. Check out the link to their website here : https://wrt.org.nz/
We had a busy day roaming through Bert’s and Kendal’s regenerating wetlands, visiting the nursery, and the intrepid Waihekeans Kristin, Montana, Nathalya, and Kym also had a comprehensive vehicular island tour courtesy of Dylan.
This was a precursor to a hui to be held by Waiheke Resources Trust on Waiheke in mid June, and attended by people from each of the four islands.
My association with WRT goes back a couple of years when they helpfully umbrella-ed a Local Board grant application, so I was enthusiastic to meet them in person, but also to connect with people from other islands. I was also interested to see a different side of Waiheke. I’d only visited the island in the past for events like Sculpture in the Gulf, and other people’s Big Birthday celebrations, so I was keen to have some encounters on Waiheke that were less injurious to my wallet with people that were similarly interested in ecology, environmental restoration, and waste reduction. Bert, Dylan, Simon, and I self-selected for the meet-up.
This necessitated a ferry trip and overnight stay, as the hui was to be held over two days.
Simon and I arrived early, and went for a quick wander around Oneroa. We spotted a likely looking chap in redbands and a swandri striding along the opposite side of the road. He had the reassuring aspect of a Rakino-ite, and turned out to be part of the delegation from Great Barrier as we discovered when we got back to the Sustainability Center which houses the WRT. Bert had arrived, but unfortunately rough weather meant that Dylan was unable to make the journey from Rakino to Waiheke in Kraken.
After lunch provided by the Kai Concious food rescue team followed by introductions we headed out on the first visit, to the Waiheke Community Resource Recovery Park, formerly known as the Waiheke Transfer Station, or ‘the dump’. WCRRP is part of the Zero Waste Collective, and it’s their task to divert as much ‘waste’ as possible from landfill. We had an animated discussion with Keith Enoka, the general manager of the waste collective, followed by a tour of the recovery station. I urge you to check out this link; it’s pretty inspirational, and an important consideration for all island dwellers as everything we bring to the island eventually ends up being removed at great expense. https://islandwastecollective.co.nz/
Our next visit was to the Compost Collective. Mike Fogarty heads up the composting team, and he gave us a comprehensive run through of the processes involved. The collective is supplied with food waste from a number of Waiheke restaurants which they compost with green waste. It was a post-prandial challenge to stare into the bin which had a top layer of fat/meat/bones, but the final product is a rich, dark, worm-laden compost which has a high nutrient value. Check out the link here : https://wrt.org.nz/composting/
This was followed up by a visit to the plant nursery. The nursery supplies eco-sourced native plants to the public, but importantly, to the wetland planting restoration projects run by WRT, our next visit…
The Rangihoua wetland restoration project is seriously impressive, not in any small way because of the sheer volume of weeds that have had to be removed before any planting could get underway. Moth plant and woolly nightshade are a curse, but multiply that with invasive honeysuckle which is not permitted to be dealt with by spraying, and the task looks gargantuan. Kym Rawson the restoration manager gave us a tour of the area which is in varying stages of regeneration. It’s looking great, and I was also really impressed by the numbers of volunteers the project has, given that mainly people like planting trees, but weeding less so. Kym visited Rakino in May with the other WRT team, and had been impressed by the regenerative plantings on Rakino, as well as having useful insight to share about our wetlands.
We returned to the Sustainability Center to relax, chat about the day with our new acquaintances, indulge in a couple of cold beverages, meet up with some more WRT staff, and feast on a potluck dinner, before heading off to our accommodation.
Day 2 of the hui focused on group workshops and a presentation by Livné Ore on the ins and outs of making successful funding applications. Livné was invaluable in guiding me when I applied for a modest sum for a snorkeling workshop, so I found her presentation helpful. Dylan had also found a window in the dodgy weather and managed to safely steer Kraken to Waiheke, so he could attend the final day.
Kristin and Montana will be collating all the outcomes of the hui, but broadly speaking there was agreement that it would be useful to share existing knowledge and resources, and that there was potential power in getting Auckland Council to view our collective islands as a distinct region while retaining our individual ‘cultures’. Thinking about some specific collective inter-island projects was also front of mind. We are also keen to re-convene in a year, as well as hold regular catch-ups and connect on social media. Everyone was keen to stress that none of us represent our individual islands, but as hui participants we have shared goals and interests. I’m looking forward to reading the collated discussion.
Many thanks to WRT for the huge effort in co-ordinating the hui, all the site visits, the great food provided by the kai conscious team, and many thanks to all the other participants who traveled to attend. I really enjoyed meeting people from other islands and seeing a completely different side of Waiheke to previous experiences.