Contents:

• Help wanted on land (see the box below).
• Recent publicity about earthtalk@awhitu.
• Article from NZ Life and Leisure.

Help wanted on our land….

Our 28-acre farm is diverse and productive - and 120 fruit trees, plus our other business activities, make too much work for two women now in our 60s.

We'd like to find ….
a lively person or two with expertise in organic growing, especially orchard management… fruit processing…perhaps hospitality, household or administrative activities.

We're open to…
one or two women…or a couple, lesbian or het …with experience, maturity, feminist perspectives and support for mana whenua.

We offer…
paid part-time work, home-grown organic fruit, vegetables, herbs and eggs, time and support for study, creative work or part-time outside employment, a small, comfortable fully-furnished cottage, the possibility of helping to expand our business activities and develop new ones.

If you're interested, send us details about yourself: training, experience, interests, other employers you've worked with, and tell us what might appeal to you about our land and living.

 
 

Magazine and newspaper articles about earthtalk@awhitu

• 'Talking to the Earth'', by Sue Moody, p.100 in New Zealand Life and Leisure, Issue 9, September/October 2006 - see below
• ''Well Preserved", by Francesca Price, p.85 in Good, Issue 2, August-September 2008
• ''Wetlands' role in local ecotourism'', p.18 Waiuku Post, Tuesday 16 December 2008
  

Radio and Television programmes about earthtalk@awhitu

We have been interviewed for:

• a Spectrum documentary of RadioNZ
• the Maggie Barry Garden Show and Queer Nation on TVNZ
• Honey, We're Killing the Kids, showing a family exploring our land, and the children picking and eating healthy fruit with enthusiasm, TV3
• Kiwi Maara, on compost-making, Series 1 - Episode 11, Maori Television, 25 September 2005
• and, most recently, earthtalk@awhitu, a full half-hour programme about our land and our relationship with Ngaati Te Ata on Takataapui, Maori Television, 4 August 2008.
  

Our Publications

Learning Our Living, a teaching autobiography and education manifesto by Charmaine Pountney, Published by Cape Catley, Auckland, 2000

Welcome to the Awhitu Peninsula, a booklet written by Charmaine Pountney and published in July 2008 by Awhitu Peninsula Landcare (Inc) for visitors to, and new residents on, the Peninsula (in print and online: see www.awhitu.org.nz)

Views from Whakaupoko, a story about Maori experience of settlement in the Mauku area between Waiuku and Pukekohe, written by George Flavell and Charmaine Pountney for The History of Mauku, published for the 125th anniversary of Mauku School in December 2008.

"Talking to the Earth" by Sue Moody

Two self-sustaining farmers have used their expertise to develop projects that maintain the long term protection of their land and offer support to local communities.

Such is the political history of Tanya Cumberland and Charmaine Pountney that they joke: “We will know that we’re really old when a day goes by without our committing a single political act”.

Partners for 21 years, permaculture farmers for 14, the pair has capitalized on city careers that took them to the top of their fields – education and social work – to create a new life on the Awhitu Peninsula, south-west of Auckland’s sprawl. “We have found that the skills we learned working in bureaucratic systems are far more eff ective here,” says Tanya of earthtalk@awhitu, their land and business.

Three ideas inform their philosophy – living healthily, healing the land and working for social justice. Like the heritage flax they grow in partnership with women of the local iwi, these disparate threads are woven into a rich tapestry that envelops every aspect of their lives. “Our aim was to develop a diverse sustainable property which provided fresh organic food for ourselves, our family and friends, a healthy lifestyle and some income.”

continues.... click here to read the full article [PDF document]