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Are you looking to make a difference for Papatūānuku in 2022? Get inspired and check out these seven people-powered campaigns, as people around Aotearoa mobilise their communities to take action for the environment themselves.

At this time we’re all called on to be activists in some way – activist students and educators, activist mums and dads, activist arborists and architects, activist lawyers and creatives, activist everyday people!

By starting local, in our neighbourhoods, we can be part of seeding the change we need on the global scale. And when coming together for change we bring together our community with purpose, weave ourselves together, and in this way also build the capacity for resilience. 

Levin

People-power closes the landfill

The Hōkio Stream in Levin has traditionally been a source of food such as eels, drinking water, recreation, identity and cultural learning. Yet it’s also the site of a notorious landfill residents have been trying to move for years. 

The landfill sits on a flood plain, in coastal sand dune country, and has been consistently in breach of a number of its environmental resource consents with bad smells, and risks of leaching. 

Local iwi members, and community and environmental group members came together to say they are ‘Over it!’ and formed a pressure group to let the Horowhenua Council know time was up on the landfill. They’ve successfully pushed Councillors to agree to close the landfill! 

Sign the petition to stay in touch and find out more at http://www.overitll.org/

Pakiri, Mangawhai

Protecting our beach

The local community behind the campaign to ‘save our sand’ on the Pakiri – Mangawhai shoreline has found solid ground in the last two months. 

They are challenging sand mining company McCallum Brothers’ application to take more sand from the beach. The sand used for construction and even to replace sand on other city beaches. Local residents and iwi know from experience over time this practice is destroying the beach. Generations of whānau have seen the effect on the trees and wildlife as the sand slowly disappears. 

Volunteers are spreading the word on social media, gathering petition signatures, sharing their story in local media and organising (socially distanced) actions. In November they made it easy for hundreds of people to make a personal submission to end sand mining of this unique ecosystem.

The team are now planning events over summer and will be delivering the petition to Auckland Council in early 2022. Read more about the SOS Pakiri campaign and sign the petition here.

Otago

Stop hauling coal!

Rosemary is an everyday Otago grandmother and an activist for the environment. 

Last month before Christmas she met her local MP, and Minister for State Owned Enterprises, David Clark, to call on him directly to ‘get KiwiRail off coal’. 

In spite of the threats to the planet’s fragile climate system, our national rail network is still hauling coal. KiwiRail carries quarter of a million tonnes of coal through Dunedin to Fonterra’s Clandeboye dairy factory in Canterbury every year – with an impact similar to putting a million extra petrol cars on the road.

The Minister accepted the petition and it will be presented to Parliament for consideration. Alongside fellow campaigners with Extinction Rebellion, Rosemary promises to keep raising the pressure to get the Minister to make a commitment to not support transporting coal. 

Add your name to the petition to stay in touch with Rosemary’s campaign to get KiwiRail off coal.

Golden Bay

Pure waters under threat

Te Waikoropupū Springs in the Golden Bay area are a natural taonga (treasure). The springs have some of the clearest water ever measured on Earth. For over three years locals have come together (as the Save our Springs group) to protect the springs. They are monitoring nitrate pollution levels at the springs and finding growing levels create risking algal blooms and pond slime.

The main source of the nitrate pollution is agricultural intensification in the recharge area of the aquifer. Dairy farms in the catchment apply hundreds of tonnes of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser each year, mainly urea.

The group will be taking their petition to the Minister to ban the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser in the spring catchment area in early 2022. Add your name and help save Te Waikoropupū Springs from the threat of synthetic nitrogen pollution.

Waiheke

Protect Pūtiki

Pūtiki Bay at Waiheke, Auckland, is an important cultural landscape and the landing site of the ancestral Arawa and Tainui waka. It is home for kororā (little blue penguins), and other native marine life. Yet it’s now also a construction site for a private marina and at risk of becoming privatised for boat owners.

Since last March, Waiheke community members, mana whenua from Ngāti Pāoa, and supporters have been present 24 hours a day at Pūtiki Bay to bear witness and protest the construction.

Thousands are joining their movement to call on Auckland Council to initiate a robust consultation process that enables wider representation from Ngāti Pāoa, to consider mātauranga Māori to assess the damage to the Bay from construction, and to revoke the resource consent.

On Wednesday 22 January protectors led a hikoi in central Auckland to challenge a court injunction banning people from the Bay. To add your support, send an email to Auckland mayor Phil Goff today, and follow Protect Pūtiki on social media.

Auckland, and across Aotearoa

Save urban ngāhere (forest)

Much of Auckland, and most cities in Aotearoa, are blessed with green areas and beautiful old trees. Yet the majority of trees currently have no legal protection, as over 60% of the urban forest in Auckland is located on private land. 

From 2015 the removal of tree protection and deregulation of the arborist profession (experts who manage trees) has meant significant losses of mature and maturing trees in our cities. 

The group Mana Rakau are calling for a halt and to urgently bring back regulations that effectively value our native and mature trees in cities.

Add your power to their petition to bring back protection for our urban trees. To get more into the issue, check out this great conversation with Zane, an educator and arborist fighting for the protection of native trees in Auckland.

• Greenpeace Community is a petition platform which hosts, nurtures, and promotes community-led campaigns for the environment in Aotearoa. All the campaigns you see on the platform work towards protecting Earth’s ability to sustain life. Is there an environmental issue close to your heart that requires your community to rally around? Start a campaign for Papatūānuku today