A charitable trust, Te Pua o Whirinaki Regeneration Trust, representing a partnership between Ngāti Whare and the Crown, manages the land and Crown funds and is responsible for implementation of Project Whirinaki. The Deed of Trust specifies it is a role of the Trustees to “raise funds from third parties including regional councils, government scientific and development agencies, private philanthropists, corporates, charitable trusts and through the Trust’s own economic initiatives”. The Trustees are: Lance Taurua (Chair), Kohiti Kohiti, Dr John Herbert, Dr Robert Allen, and William Shaw.
The Trust has a core fund and intends to only use income from that fund to undertake projects, in conjunction with resources from project partners (the core fund is not adequate to directly undertake the scale of work required).
Exotic plantation forest return area
The lands to be regenerated comprise 18 plantation compartments being harvested between 2011 and 2035, distributed within about five kilometres of Minginui village.
The programme of implementation work will vary markedly across years, depending upon the area harvested.
The total harvest area is 592.5 ha, of which considerable areas have already been harvested or are due for harvest in the near future:
- 2011: 23.34 ha
- 2012: 17.44 ha
- 2013: 19.93 ha
- 2014: 34.25 ha
- 2015: 31.51 ha
- 2018: 34.68 ha
The total area to be harvested by 2018 is 161.15 ha.
