Tāngata Whenua and Catchment Fund

Northland Regional Council’s Tāngata Whenua and Catchment Fund supports tāngata whenua and catchment groups with projects that improve the quality of freshwater in Te Taitokerau.

Expressions of interest are open from 1 April to 31 May 2025.

You can submit online or by getting in touch with one of our land management team after 1 April.

After expressions of interest close in May, projects that meet the funding criteria will be contacted by a member of our Land Management team to go over your project before it goes to the decision-making panel in July.

  • 1 April 2025
    Expressions of interest open
  • 31 May 2025
    Expressions of interest close
  • June 2025
    If your expression of interest meets the funding criteria, a land management advisor will contact you about next steps
  • July 2025
    A panel decides whether your project will get funding and notifies you
  • August 2025
    You can begin your project. All works need to be completed within the agreed timeframes

Funding is available where:

  • the applicant is an established legal or operational tāngata whenua entity such as a marae committee, hapū trust, Iwi Authority, or a consultant contracted to act on the entity’s behalf; or
  • the applicant is an established legal or operational community or catchment group.

Two types of expressions of interest can be made:

  • A single-year project can receive up to $40,000 excluding GST. spent within a single year.
  • A multi-year project can receive up to $60,000 split up over up to three years to the value of $20,000 maximum per year (e.g. year 1: 20,000, year 2: $20,000, year 3: $20,000).

The Tāngata Whenua and Catchment Fund is aimed at supporting freshwater initiatives through a wide range of project types. Below are the types of projects that this fund can support and examples of actions:

Project type Example of actions
Professional services
  • To support development of catchment management plans
  • Technical work to support prioritisation of mitigation approaches
  • GIS analysis and mapping
Engagement and awareness
  • Approaches to improve awareness and build relationships across wider community, e.g. between industries, landowners, hapū and marae
Support for kaitiaki engagement
  • Support for both engagement with kaitiaki and for kaitiaki to engage with one another to articulate catchment values
Training

To develop skills directly linked with catchment management initiatives, e.g.:

  • Water quality monitoring
  • Critical skills e.g. simple GIS
  •  Wetland management
On the ground mahi
  • Riparian or erosion control fencing and retirement
  • Native planting / afforestation

If you are a landowner in the Kaipara catchment your funding stream has moved from the Northland Regional Council to the new Kaipara Moana Remediation (KMR) Programme.

For information about the grants and funding available through the KMR Programme, and to register your interest, visit: kmr.org.nz/funding

If you have any questions about the fund or want to talk to someone about your project before applying, please get in touch with our land management team.

We can help clarify eligibility for funding and take you through the process.