A kaupapa Māori antenatal education service says a $5000 grant will help ease distress and suicide amongst new mothers. Hapū Wānanga ki Taranaki – which runs two-day courses to prepare whānau for labour, birth and parenting – has a new office in Bell Block and asked New Plymouth District Council for $5000 to help with the fit-out. The shopping list ranged from a vacuum cleaner and washing machine to a fridge-freezer and printer. The wānanga are based in tikanga and mātauranga

Rāhui organisers on the western Taranaki coast are proposing a unique local advisory group to help shape future kaimoana reserves. The advice group – Kāhui Mātaitai – would bring knowledgeable locals from across coastal Taranaki to advise on bylaws for mātaitai reserves. Mātaitai reserves allow mana whenua to draft bylaws to protect specific ocean areas, such as a particular reef, for approval by the fisheries minister. Before the current temporary legal ban on shellfish coll

Organisers of the kaimoana rāhui along the western Taranaki coast will reveal a plan for enforceable hapū reserves to the community this weekend. The combined hapū of Taranaki iwi want the current temporary prohibition on collecting shellfish replaced with mātaitai reserves, which allow legal regulation by mana whenua of particular reefs, spawning grounds and the like. The rāhui (customary closed season) on shellfish began five years ago, when Orimupiko marae placed the first