TE ŌHANGA MAURI - PRIORITY #1 - FIX THE "LEAKY BUCKET" ECONOMY
Why Our Northland Bucket is Leaking
Right now, the economy in Taitokerau is like a leaky bucket. We grow incredible forests, but we ship about 61% of our trees overseas as raw logs. These trees represent decades of our sunlight and soil nutrients (our "embodied energy"), yet we send them away for the lowest possible price. This happens because the current system focuses on "Chrematistics"—making a quick dollar for shareholders—rather than "Ekonomia," which is the long-term care of our local household and community. While the money goes offshore, we are left with the mess: damaged roads, silt in our harbours, and hillsides covered in "slash" debris.
10 Steps to Plug the Leaks
We can fix the soil of our economy by keeping our resources and their value right here at home:
Start a "Mauri Levy": Put a small fee on raw log exports to help pay for fixing our roads and protecting our rivers.
Build "Economic Pā": Create local business hubs, like the one at Ngāwhā, that keep our money and talent circulating in the North.
Use Our Own Heat: Use geothermal energy from the ground to dry our timber locally, making it much more valuable before it’s sold.
Support Local Makers: Give a boost to businesses that turn our pine into high-tech building materials like Cross-Laminated Timber.
Buy Northland First: Make sure all our own housing and government projects use timber that was grown and processed here.
Train "Digital Tohunga": Teach our young people the high-tech skills needed to run these modern plants, mixing science with our traditional knowledge.
Harvest Smarter: Move away from cutting down whole forests at once and use "continuous cover" methods to keep the soil on the hills.
Recycle the Air: Take the carbon dioxide (CO2) from our power plants and use it in glasshouses to help grow more food for our whānau.
Measure Real Success: Stop just looking at bank balances and start using the "Mauri Model" to see if a project is actually helping our people and land.
Join Forces: Help our hapū and iwi work together so we have the financial strength to compete and lead.
Making It Happen
Key Stakeholders: The Ngāpuhi Investment Fund (Tupu Tonu), our local councils, iwi and hapū groups, and our local energy companies.
Time Frame: 5 to 7 years to build the necessary processing plants and energy upgrades.
Who benefits from things staying as they are? Large overseas companies and shareholders who get our raw materials for cheap and don't have to live with the environmental consequences.
Who benefits from this solution? Every whānau in the North through better jobs, our environment through cleaner water, and our grandchildren who will inherit a thriving land.
