Since November 2025 Matuku Link is supported by Project Rise, the philanthropic project of the Dawoodi Bohras Auckland. The Dawoodi Bohras are a global, peaceful Muslim community, numbering around one million, with origins in Western India and a strong presence in over 40 countries. Led by His Holiness Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (the 53rd al-Dai al-Mutlaq (unrestricted missionary), Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, based in Mumbai, they follow the Fatimi Ismaili school of thought, focusing on education, trade, environmental responsibility, and maintaining a unique, close-knit cultural identity.

The community is actively involved in business, education, and social development, maintaining a strong, globally interconnected network. They are one of the largest food bank and hunger relief providers in the world, with the aim “nobody will go to sleep hungry”. 

Matuku Link is proud to share these community values, especially on education and environmental responsibility. John Sumich, Annalily van den Broeke and Grac Coyle recently joined their Iftar – the breaking of the 15 hour fast as part of Ramadan. It was a joyful occasion with beautiful food shared and a great opportunity to strengthen the bonds between our organisations and learn more.

Did you know: 

• They are Shia Muslims who adhere to the Quran and Sharia, performing 5 daily prayers, fasting, and valuing community, education, and women’s empowerment. Originating from Gujarat, India, they are historically a community of traders.
• They have a unique language called Lisan ud-Dawat (derived from Arabic, Persian, and Gujarati) with a distinct, modest dress code: men wear white outfits (dopi), and women wear a two-piece colorful dress called Rida.
• They emphasize being law-abiding, loyal citizens in their host countries, with a strong focus on philanthropy (Project Rise) and environmental sustainability.
  Community Life: They are known for their community-sharing, often dining together from a large plate called a thal.

We’d love to see you here at Matuku Link for our volunteer sessions – every Tuesday and every Third Sunday of the month – except when it is a Statutory Holiday or a weather warning is in place – info for 2024:

The Tuesday Team – weekly around 15 people work hard from 9 am till noon, with a cake-filled morning tea break, in our plant nursery and out in the field. The nursery is the motor of our project – under the expert guidance of one of our Waitakere Rivercare members, who have been running a local native plant nursery for the past three decades, we grow all our eco-sourced plants here, from seed or from cuttings. The team looks after the plants until they are at least 30 cm high and can be planted out in the field: former bare paddocks are now covered with our native trees. Planting is done in winter by our Tuesday volunteers as well, and in summer they rescue those plants from smothering weeds. Other volunteers like building more than planting – they are in charge of all construction projects we come up with – our creative Window Wall, steps onto the boardwalk, a new aviary, seats… It is a family friendly, all ages welcome, environment where we provide all the tools (gloves, secateurs, spades) and instruction you might need, plus a lot of gratitude for you spending your time with us! Just register you’re coming for the first time so we can pull an extra chair up. Register here.

Monthly Sunday Working Bees – every Third Sunday of the month from 10 am till 1pm for the past seven years we’ve welcomed everyone to help us plant (in winter) and do “search and rescue” (weeding around our native plants) and together we’ve revegetated almost 3 hectares of bare paddocks, woohoo! Our native plants and trees need looking after for at least three years after they’re in the ground, to make sure they won’t get smothered. After floods we replace stakes, upright plants and clear debris. After very dry times we might need to replace plants or create light wells for infill planting. Some might spread mulch, regravel the pathways or cut back overhanging branches. Basically together we look after Matuku Link. In winter we recommend wearing gumboots, in summer closed shoes (cutty grass!) and a hat. We supply the gloves, spade and sharks (flax knives, super tools for weeding). If it’s your first time with us, or if you’re planning to come with a bigger group, please let me know so we’ve got enough hot drinks, soup or salad for our shared lunch – register here.

Always: we’ve grown Matuku Link entirely with volunteers and their knowledge, time and expertise has been invaluable. We’ve had experienced builders, biologists, planners, botanists, educators, fundraisers, lawyers, trustees, business people, artists, educators, trainers, photographers, graphic designers, IT people, web experts, trappers – we can ALWAYS use your experience and expertise – we’d love to hear from you. Or if you want to learn something and think we can off this through our network of volunteers, get in touch. Currently we’re specifically looking for people who’d like to give guided tours – for adults or children – and help out with our education program (we’ll train you, enthusiasm is the only requirement). Contact Leah Nielsen, our educator, to learn more – schools@matukulink.org.nz

If you’re new, we’ll take you on a guided tour around the project as well. If you’re a regular, you know how satisfying and fun this is, so bring your friends! All ages welcome, especially the tamariki.

• no need to bring your own gloves and spades, but if you do: everything needs to be squeaky clean because of kauri dieback
• for the shared lunch we’ll provide soup or salad & snacks (and homemade baking if you’re lucky!) & hot drinks to share, if you can bring something to add, that’s always appreciated.

But don’t forget if you haven’t been before to register HERE.

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees

0212207136 or hello@matukulink.org.nz

When we started the Matuku Link school holiday program, we didn’t think it would be so successful so quickly: last week’s series was fully booked almost every day, with most of the children wanting to return the next day… because what’s not do love: making friends while building huts, feeding eels, going on a scavenger hunt for insects, matching colors in nature, harakeke flower weaving, finding leaf shapes, making kawakawa tea, getting muddy, wet and tired… we’re pretty certain the parents appreciated the latter 🙂

All of this coordinated and led by our amazing educators Leah and Rebecca, assisted by volunteers Josh, Rosemary and Dot this week. We’d love to run this program during all the weeks of the school holiday, however that would only work with a couple more volunteers to help out and make it fun. If this is something you’d like to know more about, or have some time to help with, please contact Leah on schools@matukulink.org.nz

Ka kite anō! Annalily

A great team of students from Kelston Intermediate came out to Matuku Link to experience our very first Wetland Education Program session – Te kaupapa rohe koreporepo.

This all boys team lead by kaiako John and his colleagues were super engaged with all we shared with them: from Brian Ireland’s introduction of the most important te reo words of the day and acknowledging Te Kawerau A Maki, mana whenua of this region, to John Stanilands’ talk about kahikatea (and pointing out that these trees are either boys or girls!) to their exercises to identify macroinvertebrates, lead by Hohepa Waenga. All our education volunteers helped them to compare the quality of the water based on the temperature, clarity and inhabitants – a hands-on activity for all of them. The afternoon focused on birds – how to read bird bands (from left to right, top to bottom), identify birds by their song, and use the binoculars to spot (stuffed) birds with their color bands.

It was a great day and I’m not sure who enjoyed it more: the students and their teachers, or our trustees who saw the final part of our Matuku Link vision come to fruition!

We’ve got a couple more schools booked in for the coming weeks – let us know if you’re interested to join our team of volunteers, or if you are interested to bring your school group out here for a full immersion Wetland program.

Nga mihi, Annalily (manager) & Leah (educator) – schools@matukulink.org.nz

Photos taken by several volunteers – thank you!

Matuku Link is a wetland conservation, protection, and education project in the Waitakere River Valley, located in Auckland largest wetland, Te Henga. The program has a strong focus on environmental science and acknowledgement of mātauranga Māori. It received a grant from the Mazda Foundation which will go towards the education work they do with schools on wetlands, water quality and native flora and fauna in their area. Students in the program will be encouraged to return to the wetlands to continue to build their knowledge over their early schooling lives with Matuku Link. One of the big focus points will be on ecological monitoring, taking measurements and observations so the students can see if Matuku Link is on the right track. 

Matuku Link trustees thank the Mazda Foundation for their commitment to support the Education Program for the coming three  years!

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees

Through the Sustainable Business Network we have received funding for our Jobs4Nature team – and even before that, we worked with them on several successful fundraisers as part of Million Metres Streamside Restoration. So when they asked us to do another planting day with their SBN Investors, supporter Alsco and the Auckland City Mission, of course we said yes!

With the help of our own team of volunteers – leading groups, cooking sausages, making soup, carrying plants, demonstrating how to use a shark, pointing out birds, taking pictures, keeping everyone on track – we planted up a part of our wetland called “Holly’sWood”, did a guided walk over the property and had a Search and Rescue session for last year’s planted trees. Even the weather gods were kind to us: no rain once we’ve started and only after the bbq lunch the skies came down again. Must be a reward for all the hard work 🙂

Thank you to all of you who were part of this busy & satisfying day, hope to see you back at Matuku Link one day to check up on the progress of your plants – we’re here every third Sunday of the month.

Nga mihi nui, Annalily & the trustees

PS If you’d like to buy one of the handy flax cutters or nice t-shirts, go to our Support Us page.

Annalily & the trustees

Finally we were able to welcome the children from year 3 and 4 from our local Henderson Valley Primary school. Finally, because this trip has been planned two times before… both during last year’s lockdowns! Luckily this time this year we could go ahead and have some fun in the sun… or in the rain as it turned out to be!

The children, teachers and parent helpers were absolute champions with this slightly unfortunate weather. Planting, learning about seed dispersal, pests and predators, wetlands and of course eels: it was great to see everyone engaged and mucking in.

The Monday group planted about 200 small cabbage trees (ti kouka) and flaxes (harakeke) in the planting beds, to grow big and strong for next year’s planting. The Tuesday group and group the following Monday did a superb job of planting our babies, our beautifully grown trees from our nursery – adding around 250 trees and shrubs to our forest, providing shelter and food for our birds and insects in years to come. Supervised by piwakawaka and dive-bombed by two kereru it was a great outing for all, although I do feel for the parents who had to clean their cars after transporting the students back to school!

Hopefully we will see many of you on future working bees (every Third Sunday of the month) or at an Open Day to check on your trees.

And I’m sure we’ll see another couple of classes next year here at Matuku Link as well!

Nga mihi nui, Annalily & Derek & all our volunteers

We love to see groups returning to Matuku Link: they can admire the health of the trees they planted, check out the other things we’ve done and become part of our growing (excuse the pun) project. One of those groups is the Kiwi Conservation Club, Forest & Bird’s young conservationists. Not only do they bring engaged parents, they also bring energy, great questions and a bit of magic: we saw a new family of endangered pateke (brown teal) with four chicks, little balls of cute fluffiness, for the first time! As if the pateke knew we were helping them build their habitat, and wanted to say hello. 

Volunteer Derek March, highly experienced educator and artist, prepared a special celebration of our tuna (eels) for the children: celebrating the Eel Migration with them by floating flax tuna (eels) down the river. A lot of hebe (koromiko) were planted on the bunds of the pateke pond and around the newly created boardwalk. A couple of parents discovered the benefits of digging into a hard layer of shells, buried just under the topsoil: no need to go to the gym this afternoon. 

We had lunch in the barn where I chatted about predators, good and bad, and was impressed  yet again with the knowledge of this latest generation. 

Thank you and hope to see you again soon! 

Annalily & the trustees

All images by our voluntary professional photographer Stefan Marks – thank you!

The first and last business planting group of 2020 – thanks to Covid we have had to cancel everyone else. But the team from Lion worked tremendously hard on their volunteer day to make up for that and planted hundreds of trees, shrubs and flaxes. It was right next to the planting they did last year, which had grown so much it was barely recognizable. 

They brought their own, very sustainable, lunches and carpooled on their way here and back… very impressive work, all organised by Kat McDonald from their sustainability team. A super team building day for them, many hands on deck for us, and happy plants which can develop their roots for the coming summer.

Thank you and see you next  year!

Annalily & the Matuku Link team

The Kiwi Conservation Club, the junior group of Forest & Bird, is run by volunteers and has been visiting Matuku Link since we started. It’s always great to see the look on people’s faces when they see how much the plants have grown which they planted with their children last year, or even the year before! The trees have definitely grown faster than the visiting children, which I’m sure is a good thing.

With the parents working almost as hard as their children, they planted our river edge along the Pateke Pond with carex and low growing shrubs, to provide a stable edge and habitat for all our native birds and insects. We discovered one of the parents is an entomologist, to the delight of the children: he pointed out all the bugs we came across while digging the holes for the plants.  

This time their visit coincided with our July Monthly working Bee, so we had a full car park and a full house at lunch time. It was super to see everyone mingle, share stories, soup and home made bread and enjoy the beautiful weather we had. It certainly felt more like spring than winter!

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees