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Last week, the Hauraki Gulf Forum / Te Kāhui Tautaki o Tīkapa Moana published State of our Gulf 2026, the eighth assessment of the health of Tīkapa Moana / Te Moananui-ā-Toi / the Hauraki Gulf since monitoring began over 25 years ago, and one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant environmental accountability documents.

Pattle Delamore Partners is proud to have supported the Forum in bringing this report to life. As the report itself reflects, its story belongs to the Hauraki Gulf Forum and its members, to mana whenua, and to communities right across the Gulf, who are doing the hard and persistent mahi needed to protect and restore Tīkapa Moana / Te Moananui-ā-Toi.

The report confirms what many of those communities already know, that the Gulf remains under real and sustained pressure. It builds on the kaupapa of previous reporting, and it does so in a way that puts the people of the Gulf front and centre.

That message carries new urgency this week, with confirmation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s first case of H5N1 avian influenza, detected in a seabird in Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington. Overseas, the same strain has caused significant losses among wild seabird and marine mammal populations. Tīkapa Moana is home to more than 70 seabird species and over 40 predator-free islands that provide sanctuary for seabird populations. However, with 86% of the Gulf’s seabirds already at risk, the arrival of H5N1 in Aotearoa represents an immediate and serious new pressure on an environment already under strain. It is a reminder of why the sustained, collective mahi to protect and restore the Hauraki Gulf matters more than ever.

Structured around three pou, ‘Ki uta ki tai / Mountains to the sea’, ‘Te kanorau koiora / Biodiversity’, and ‘Tiakina te pātaka kai / Preserving the food basket’, the report lifts up the stories of mana whenua and communities defending pockets of reef, shoreline and catchment, often against the odds.

“As the challenges facing the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park become more complex, it’s vital that the evidence of this is accessible. We wanted this year’s State of our Gulf report to help people see the challenges, as well as the work happening around the Gulf to tackle them. Pattle Delamore Partners understood that brief from the outset, creating a report that is engaging and accessible while preserving the rigour and integrity that have defined this reporting series for over 25 years,” say Co-Chairs of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, Nicola Rata-MacDonald and Cr Warren Maher.

“Being part of this kaupapa has been a privilege,” says Brigid Cottrell, Marketing and Communications Director at PDP. “The Forum, mana whenua and the communities of the Gulf have done the hard work for years, and continue to do so. Our job was to help the stories of that mahi, and its importance, to land with the people who need to hear it.”

Our role with the report was to bring the examples of action across the Gulf together with the rigorous science and data underpinning the challenges it faces, and to show why action is needed, and matters so much. The project was cross-disciplinary by design, drawing on a collaborative approach to visual and narrative storytelling, and to weaving mātauranga Māori and western science together throughout the report, in recognition that both are essential to understanding the health of the Gulf.

We congratulate the Hauraki Gulf Forum on the release of this report, and in particular Beth Rose, the Forum’s Executive Officer, its Co-Chairs Nicola Rata-MacDonald and Cr Warren Maher, all those featured in the report and everyone working and advocating for Tīkapa Moana.

Read the State of our Gulf 2026 report at gulfjournal.org.nz