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Tuesday 12pm - 3pm Wednesday 12pm - 3pm Thursday 12pm - 3pm Friday 12pm - 3pm

Whāingaroa Environment Centre / Te Pokapū Taiao o Whāingaroa

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Whāingaroa Environment Centre / Te Pokapū Taiao o Whāingaroa

A hub for community environmental initiatives in Raglan. Our vision is that Whāingaroa is a healthy, resilient and environmentally sustainable community.

Te Pokapū Taiao o Whāingaroa / The Whāingaroa Environment Centre (WEC) is a Charitable Incorporated Society and an information, resource & action hub, supporting environmental sustainability. WEC links groups, government agencies and Raglan community members who share this vision, and organised projects and events supporting this vision. The centre, based in the Raglan Town Hall on Bow Street, has

been successfully operating since 1997 to engage and empower people to take action. Toitū te Marae a Tāne, Toitū te Marae a Tangaroa, Toitū te whenua
Hold fast to the treasures of Tāne, hold fast to the treasures of Tangaroa, hold fast to the land

08/09/2026

🌊 BEACH CLEAN – NEW DATE: SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER

International Coastal Cleanup Day 2026 at Ruapuke Beach was originally planned for Saturday 19 September, to coincide with the global International Coastal Cleanup Day.

But March for Nature is happening in Auckland on the same day, and we think this is an important moment to stand together for nature.

Rather than asking our community to choose between the two, we’ve decided to move the beach clean and encourage as many people as possible to head up to Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland and take part in March for Nature.

There’ll be a strong contingent from Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) heading along, and we’d love to see plenty of other Raglan faces there too. If you’ve been thinking about going, grab some friends, organise a carpool and make the trip up to join people from across Aotearoa standing up for our conservation land and the places we all care about.

Our beaches will still need us two weeks later, so the Ruapuke Beach Clean will now take place on Saturday 3 October. 🌊

So on Saturday 19 September, let’s get behind March for Nature, and then on 3 October, we’ll get together at Ruapuke and give our coastline some love. 💚

Find out more about March for Nature here:
https://www.marchfornature.nz/

08/09/2026

Do you have broken items taking up space at home?

Repair Cafe is here to help!

This Saturday 10am-12pm at Stewart Street Hall

Our amazing team of volunteer repairers can assess and often fix a huge range of things from:

+ Clothing and textiles with holes, rips and worn patches.
+ Small appliances like toasters, blenders, lamps, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines and more.
+ Knives and tools that need sharpening.
+ Computers, phones, printers, tablets that are malfunctioning.
+ Broken furniture, tools, toys that need gluing or screwing.
+ Simple fixes on jewellery, chains and watch-straps.

If you have something in mind, drop a comment and we'll let you know if we can help!

👉🏾 10am-12pm Second Saturday of each month in the Stewart Street Hall

Full event details in the first comment below ⬇️

03/09/2026

🔔 REMINDER: Hua Whenua Whāingaroa opens for orders every Saturday! 🌱

Shop local produce from Whāingaroa growers and producers through our local online market.

Orders are open from Saturday until midnight Tuesday, ready to collect Thursday, 5-7pm from the Raglan Refill Tiny Shop on Bow Street.

A simple way to buy local and support local food producers 💚

Shop here:
https://openfoodnetwork.org.nz/hua-whenua-whaingaroa-shop/shop

01/09/2026

Flashback to the Tool Library workshops where you could get hands-on and learn how to use power tools.

This Saturday, ReWorks is revisiting those favourites, with Reno Rachel and Demo Debs leading a hands-on DIY & Power Tools workshop, in the community workshop space at the Xtreme Zero Waste Woodyard.

Whether you've been meaning to fix something around the house, have a project idea rattling around in your head, or just want to spend a few hours making something out of wood and a bit of Kiwi ingenuity, this one's for you.

You’ll be guided through the basics of using power tools safely and confidently, including drills, sanders, circular saws, routers, planers, quick grips and more. Best of all, these are the kinds of tools available to borrow from the Environment Centre Tool Library, so what you learn on Saturday can help you tackle your own projects without having to buy all the gear yourself.

Browse the XZW Woodyard + DIY Yard for reclaimed materials, or bring your own project. From small repairs to something built from scratch, the afternoon is yours to shape.

Tool Library members are already creating everything from lamps to pūrerehua using these tools, and we'd love to help more people in our community gain the skills and confidence to bring their own ideas to life.

This is for the curious, the keen, and everyone who's ever watched someone use a power tool and thought, I could do that!
You can. Come find out.

Spaces are limited, so check out the event link below for all the details and to book your spot.

https://events.humanitix.com/reworks-pretty-fly-for-a-diy

28/08/2026

Come with seeds, leave with seeds, or come and discover where to start! 🫘 🌱

Our Seed Swap & Share is happening this Sunday, bringing local growers and gardeners together to swap seeds, discover new varieties and share knowledge.

Have saved seeds or extras in your stash? Bring them along and see what you can swap.
Keen to start saving seeds but don’t have any yet? Come along too. There’ll be seeds for everyone and plenty of knowledge to share.

👉🏾 THIS SUNDAY 30 August | 2-4pm
📍 Raglan Community House Basement

Bring something tasty to share for afternoon tea if you can, and come ready to swap, share and grow. 🌻

Full details in the event below 👇🏾

27/08/2026

We love this new series from Raglan Naturally. 'Journeys to Home' brings together the people, knowledge and stories that deepen our understanding of the landscapes of Whāingaroa and our connection to this place.

A beautiful celebration of our people, whenua and knowledge. Well worth a watch.

25/08/2026

Some genuinely good news for Waikato in the latest greenhouse gas figures from Stats NZ! 🌱

Waikato recorded the second-largest decrease in regional greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa in 2025, with emissions falling by 571,000 tonnes of CO₂-e, or 3.9%, in just one year.

That represents around 30% of the total emissions reduction across all regions in Aotearoa.

And a big congratulations to Taranaki, who topped the country, reducing their emissions by 693,000 tonnes of CO₂-e, or 8.2%. 👏

So what helped drive the drop here in Waikato?

A huge part came from electricity, gas, water and waste services, where emissions fell by 560,000 tonnes, or 16.4%. Increased renewable electricity generation from hydro, geothermal and solar meant less reliance on coal and gas-fired generation.

Across Aotearoa, regional greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.5% in 2025, reaching their lowest level since the regional series began in 2007.

There’s still a long way to go. Waikato remains one of the country’s highest-emitting regions, particularly because of the scale of agriculture and electricity generation here. But these figures are a good reminder that emissions can come down, and changes to the way we produce energy can make a significant difference.

There was some good news at household level too, with household emissions falling in every region of Aotearoa in 2025, largely due to lower household transport emissions.

Progress is possible. Now we need to keep it going, and speed it up. 💙🌏💚

🔗 Stats NZ article linked in the comments below ⬇️

24/08/2026

A huge thank you to Jay Salzke from Rewiring Aotearoa for presenting at Science Night last Wednesday!

It was an incredibly informative evening, looking at how electrifying our homes and transport can save money, reduce emissions and make our households and communities more resilient.

If you missed it, Jay also had a great chat with Aaron on Raglan Community Radio the following morning. We’ll pop the interview in the comments below, along with Rewiring Aotearoa’s very cool household calculator so you can see what electrification could look like for your own home.

And make sure you check out Community Energy Whāingaroa too. They’re doing this mahi right here in Whāingaroa, helping our community create warmer, more energy-efficient homes and develop local renewable energy solutions.

Thanks Jay, and thanks to everyone who came along and brought such great questions!

18/08/2026

The latest State of the Climate report has just been released, pulling together data from 625 scientists across 60 countries, and there are some pretty confronting numbers in it.

Greenhouse gases are still increasing. Atmospheric CO₂ reached 425.6 ppm in 2025, which is around 53% higher than pre-industrial levels. That matters because the more greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, the more heat we trap.

And that heat has to go somewhere.

The last 11 years have now been the 11 warmest years on record.

Our oceans are absorbing most of that extra heat, and ocean heat reached another record high in 2025. Around 87% of the world's ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave.

Sea levels reached another record high. Glaciers lost ice for the 38th year in a row.

It's a lot to take in, and it's very easy to feel like climate change is simply too big for anything we do locally to make a difference. But that's not really how change works.

Here in Whāingaroa, the work we do around reducing waste, reusing resources, growing and buying food locally, restoring our whenua and building a more resilient community is part of the response.

But local action can't replace the big changes we need from governments and industry. We need both.

And with elections coming up, this is something worth thinking about when we vote. What are the people asking for our votes actually proposing to do about climate change? Are their policies going to reduce emissions, help our communities adapt to the changes already happening, and leave the next generation in a better position than we're in now?

We know what's causing this. We know what needs to change. The decisions we make, including at the ballot box, really do matter.

We've linked the article in the comments below 👇🏾

Address

Town Hall, Bow Street PO Box 227
Raglan
3225

Opening Hours

Tuesday	12pm - 3pm
Wednesday	12pm - 3pm
Thursday	12pm - 3pm
Friday	12pm - 3pm

Website

http://www.whaingaroa.org.nz/

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