Scooting along the Hauraki Gulf’s seafloor, Snoopy surveys the terrain where millions of green-lipped mussels once thrived.
Snoopy acts as a vital pair of underwater eyes – a remote-operated vehicle (ROV), like a drone of the sea – helping the groups working in partnership to re-mussel the Gulf.
In an endeavour to address the biodiversity crisis below the waterline, Revive Our Gulf is working to bring back the kūtai (mussel) reefs that once covered Auckland’s seafloor but were dredged to near extinction. En mass, the mussels are improving the water quality and support restoring the marine ecosystem at the same time.
So far, 372 tonnes of kūtai have been planted in specific areas of the Gulf, where they work as ‘ecosystem engineers’ – filtering the water and providing homes for tiny sea creatures, who in turn, attract bigger fish.
Snoopy plays a major role in the Revive our Gulf project’s monitoring programme, creating “more eyes in the water”, Katina Conomos explains.
“When the mussels go into the water, in some respects that’s when the real work begins. In the marine environment, it’s harder to gather knowledge, because it’s just not as easy to see,” says Conomos, programme director of the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, one of the collaborators in the Revive Our Gulf project.
That’s where the help of the BNZ Foundation comes in. The charitable trust has granted $450,000 towards a three-year monitoring programme to help evaluate the impact and track the progress of the kūtai reefs.
It’s one of three partnerships the BNZ Foundation has invested in since it was established a year ago, with the vision of “accelerating positive change in Aotearoa New Zealand”. Its two other partnerships focus on helping low-income families and whānau in financial hardship.
The foundation’s funding originated from the sale of the BNZ’s significant art collection in December 2022 – $10.5m of the auction proceeds were gifted to the BNZ Foundation to be distributed for the benefit of Kiwi communities.
Lucy Doyle, head of the BNZ Foundation, says the idea of putting the money into a charitable foundation and investing it in perpetuity was a “very deliberate and strategic decision … And it was around honouring the heritage of the art as well – to do something long-term for New Zealand.”
The foundation decided to focus on issues integral to building a better New Zealand and aligning with the bank’s sustainability strategy, Te Pae Tawhiti. They created two grants: Manaaki Taiao for biodiversity regeneration, and Manaaki Tangata for financial wellbeing.
“The two areas we landed on were biodiversity regeneration in the face of increasing biodiversity loss and climate change, and financial wellbeing – how do we support families and individuals who are facing hard times and give them more confidence in their future?” Doyle says.
Four of the five trustees for the BNZ Foundation are from the BNZ, while the independent trustee is John McCarthy, who also manages the Tindall Foundation.
“Whenever they come to do business for the foundation, they understand they have to take their BNZ hats off and put their foundation hats on,” Doyle says.
Not wanting to tap already familiar organisations, the BNZ Foundation held a public funding round last year to find new initiatives needing help.
“Our original plan was to look for two big funding partnerships, and we have ended up with one large one and two smaller, seed opportunities, which suits what we’re trying to achieve,” says Doyle.
The two smaller Manaaki Tangata initiatives are Waka Aronui, an innovative social car leasing project in south Auckland, and Thriving Communities Aotearoa, aimed at improving community resilience.
Funding is helping the Ākina Foundation with a feasibility study on scaling Waka Aronui. So far, the programme involves more than 20 whānau in south Auckland who are leasing safe, reliable, low-emission hybrid vehicles through MUMA, the Manukau Urban Māori Authority.
“Ākina has an impact report that shows really positive outcomes even after one year of the pilot,” Doyle says. “The families reported less financial stress, increased financial wellbeing, and increased mental health. There were also emissions savings across the fleet – just so many great indicators, both for the environment and, in particular, for whānau.
“It’s an important programme because it’s also about equity in the transition to a low-carbon future.
“Hopefully what we’re doing will mobilise a platform for other funders to get involved in different areas around the country, which would be a huge success.”
The BNZ Foundation is also helping to provide skilled volunteers for the project, around financial modelling and risk critique. “That’s a tangible example of how the foundation can work hand-in-hand with our partners and bring the might of BNZ to bear,” Doyle says.
Another illustration of corporate and community partners working together for the greater good is Thriving Communities Aotearoa, which aims to make sure whānau and communities maintain access to essential household services like energy, water and food.
In 2023, Toitū Tahua, the Centre for Sustainable Finance convened a group of community and corporate partners, including BNZ, to create a nationwide initiative drawing inspiration from Australia’s Thriving Communities Partnership.
“It’s still embryonic, but the idea is to create an umbrella organisation to bring together what is currently a disparate system,” says Doyle. “You’ve got banks, utility companies, community organisations all doing things to help people experiencing financial difficulty or vulnerability. The idea of the partnership is you can go to one place and access all the things you’re entitled to, to help you.”
Rahul Watson Govindan, chief executive of Philanthropy New Zealand, believes the country is experiencing a generational shift in understanding the citizenship of corporations and community.
“Particularly in New Zealand, where the degrees of separation between the corporation and the citizen is not as stratified as some of the larger countries in the world,” he says. “You might find the chief executive of a big corporation is probably the same person who’s refereeing on the weekend. Most of us wear multiple hats.
“What’s unique about the BNZ Foundation – and where I’d like to see more activity – is a foundation allows a bank to do meaningful work as a corporate citizen of New Zealand in areas where they would really like to make a difference, that may have nothing to do with traditional finance.
“But they have the means, the capability and the interest to make a difference. The BNZ Foundation is working in the natural environment and people in communities, and for me, that’s the power of having a corporate foundation.”
In the meantime, Snoopy continues to explore the Hauraki Gulf, used by iwi to monitor their mussel reefs. Revive our Gulf is a collaboration with Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, the University of Auckland, The Nature Conservancy and three tangata whenua partners.
Ngāti Manuhiri, who are restoring kūtai in the Mahurangi, have been on the water for the past few months learning how to best use the ROV. “We’re making it a skill that’s more accessible for non-experts,” Conomos says.
Since the last kūtai planting in the Gulf in 2022, there’s been a lot of monitoring to see what happens to the mussels on the seafloor. With that knowledge, Revive Our Gulf is preparing for the next set of planting this winter.
“I’m grateful that the BNZ Foundation selected a project that’s within the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park/Tīkapa Moana/Te Moananui-a-Toi – both as a commitment to this part of Aotearoa and because the platform BNZ can bring to the Gulf’s issues and opportunities,” says Conomos.
“There’s now a lot of reporting on the degradation within the Gulf, and I commend BNZ Foundation’s willingness to enter this space for their inaugural investment.”
