Project Summary
Building connection with the moana through traditional voyaging and wayfinding
Finding the intersection of science and mātauranga
Engaging rangatahi with the marine environment and developing their skills to be good kaitiaki
Photo Credit / Te Toki Voyaging Trust
Aotearoa New Zealand’s story is intrinsically linked to the moana and the many wayfinders who voyaged across the ocean.
Knowledge and appreciation of our history is critical in rebuilding our connection with the ocean. By learning about those who crossed the ocean before us we can restore and protect it for future generations.
We’ve teamed up with Te Toki Voyaging Trust (TTVT) to highlight traditional voyaging as a vehicle through which mātauranga (knowledge) can join with western science to create a culture of caring for the environment and sustaining people.
Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr
Master Navigator – Te Toki Voyaging Trust
TTVT was founded by Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr (Tainui). Hoturoa’s whakapapa links him deeply to Kāwhia Moana, the ancient settlement of the Tainui people and canoe.
TTVT’s mission is to provide opportunities in all aspects of indigenous Māori/Pacific culture for isolated communities and minority groups. Their vision is to build sustainable communities using traditional environmental practices and mātauranga.
As part of this collaboration, which is now in its fourth year, Live Ocean is providing capacity support to TTVT. This enables the organisation to deliver more of their invaluable work with rangatahi – including the Rere Tahi voyage – and the wider community which carries respect for the marine environment at its core.
Master Navigator, Te Toki Voyaging Trust
Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr (Tainui) is the captain of the oceangoing waka Haunui. He is the son of Wharetoroa and Ngarungatapu Kerr, is married to Kim and has five children: Namaka, Turanga, Rangiiria, Noenoe and Hinemanu. Hoturoa has been sailing around the Pacific for more than thirty-five years. He paddles waka, sails waka, teaches waka.
Hoturoa is a native Māori speaker and spent the first six years of his life with the Tuhoe people in Rūātoki. After moving to Auckland with his mother aged six, Hoturoa went on to be a lecturer at Waikato University for over nineteen years, and his Master’s thesis investigated how the waka is a symbol of mana in the twenty-first century. More recently he has specialised in education and leadership programmes that use the waka as a platform for learning and development.
Hoturoa is an orator on his marae at Kāwhia, the home of Haunui, and the ancient landing and settlement place of his ancestral waka, Tainui and his ancestor Hoturoa.
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