Sea Gardening
and the Wharf Hub
- growing our connection with the marine world.
Welcome aboard.
The ancient cultural practice of Sea Gardening is being revived at the Wharf Hub. Enhancing marine life is not only good for the moana (sea) but also good for us.
Going back 100 years, when our rivers were our roads, voyagers often stayed at the Wharf Hub waiting for their ships to arrive or depart. Today our connection with the sea is still just as strong, and we offer unique Voyages with local Ports of Call experiences.
Combined you can discover not only a route to enhancing marine life and your own, but also contribute to helping a low socio-economic township grow toward health and wealth.
The Wharf Hub is the centre for
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Short hour long introductory garden talks about 'Sea Gardening'
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AirBnB Experiences in 'Sea Gardening'.
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In depth multi day workshops on 'Reef Building'
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Ethical blue standard Zeand Fishing expeditions
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The charitable 'Opotiki Community REAF Trust.'
Regenerative tourism is where our vision becomes attuned to working with nature and enriching the community we live in.
For many this may involve a slight shift in ones mind set.
Our Mission.
'The Wharf Hub's mission is to enhance marine life and human well being.'
Innately we can all sense that these two things are interconnected - marine life and human well being. After all no one wants to live by polluted waterways nor have oceans that are devoid of marine life. Our mission is to enhance the life of both.
"The key elements that are likely to make up the future of tourism involve human interaction, education, genuine experiences and an element of giving back."
The Wharf Hub.
In 2010 The Wharf Hub was purchased and restoration work begun.
The home was built by William Walker back in 1922 from assorted native timbers shipped in from the East Coast.
It offers some accommodation, plus a base and larger property immediately by the Opotiki Wharf where tours on Sea Gardening are held and work on the Community Reef can progress.
Our History.
In 2007 a pioneering concept of building a 'Community Reef' close to the Opotiki Harbour entrance which would provide more diverse and sustainable fishing for the local community was born. This was a time of rapidly rising fuel prices and talk of a quota cut to just 3 snapper per person. (It was reduced to 7 and size increased to 30cm).
While deploying artificial reefs to improve fishing was common overseas, the same issues of fish depletion or what is known as the 'tragedy of the commons' keeps reoccurring.
Albert Einstein is quoted as declaring "You can't use an old map to explore a new world."
In this light we evolved our thinking to 'Seabed Enhancement', and applied sustainable indigenous Maori environmental concepts known as 'kaitiakitanga.'
A further evolution occured in 2024 that links our efforts to the more decriptive cultural practice of 'Sea Gardening'.
Very clearly 'invoking the spirit' is a fundamental part of such a system and world view. Four key elements to the project were identified in the early days of marine enhancement work that are now depicted as a logo on the bow of our office boat at the Wharf Hub.
An entity REAF (Recreating Enhanced Areas for Fish) was formed for registration purposes, and is now included in the affiliated Charitable Trusts name Opotiki Community REAF Trust.