Ko Tāua Tāua: Relationships are climate infrastructure
What the Climate Future Search Wānanga revealed about trust, care and the relationships that collective action depends on.
Climate action is often described through policies, finance, technology and targets. Less attention is paid to the relationships that determine whether people and institutions can make any of these work together.
Who trusts whom?
Which communities, experiences and forms of knowledge are heard?
What enables collaboration to endure amid urgency, complexity and fatigue?
These questions sat beneath Ko Tāua Tāua. Ko Tāmaki Makaurau Tātou, the Climate Future Search Wānanga held at Te Mahurehure Cultural Marae in May 2026.
The films accompanying this reflection offer a glimpse into the three-day gathering: the people who came together, the conversations that unfolded and the relationships woven across communities, sectors and generations. Here below is the short version - or continue on for a more detailed view.
Seeing the whole, and seeing our place within it
Climate action across Tāmaki Makaurau is rich, diverse and deeply committed.
Leadership exists within communities, mana whenua, rangatahi, businesses, government, research, funding, finance, advocacy, education, creativity and many other parts of society. People are already developing solutions, shifting institutions, protecting places and building different futures.
Yet it is difficult for anyone working within one part of this landscape to see the whole.
Organisational structures divide complex systems into sectors, programmes, mandates and areas of expertise. Different communities use different language, hold different forms of knowledge and experience the climate crisis in profoundly different ways. Even people working towards similar outcomes may have few opportunities to encounter one another meaningfully.
The wānanga used Future Search to bring a deliberately selected cross-section of people into one room. Participants were invited across nine voice groups but attended as individuals, bringing their own lived and learned experience rather than speaking on behalf of an organisation or community.
Together, they explored the histories that shaped the present, examined the forces influencing climate action today and imagined what a thriving taiao could look like for future generations.
As one of the facilitators explains in the film, Future Search offers a way for systems “to face ourselves”.
That means seeing more than the work we are individually leading. It means recognising the relationships, histories, inequities, tensions and possibilities that connect different parts of the system. It also means recognising the importance of our own contribution within that wider landscape.
Stories play an important role in this process. They allow people to share not only what they do, but what they have experienced, what they value and what they believe needs to become possible. Through those stories, people can begin to develop a fuller picture of the system they inhabit.
The gathering also brought the cross-sector intention of Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland’s Climate Plan into a shared space. As Dave Watson of Auckland Council reflected during the wānanga:
“This is the plan in action.”
Relationships make collective action possible
People can belong to the same broad ecosystem without feeling connected to one another.
They may attend the same events, contribute to related strategies or appear together on stakeholder maps while remaining separated by professional boundaries, institutional pressures or very different experiences of power.
Coordination requires more than identifying the relevant organisations. It depends on trust, shared understanding and the ability to listen across difference.
The name of the wānanga expressed this relational foundation:
Ko Tāua Tāua. Ko Tāmaki Makaurau Tātou.
The title speaks to connection and collective belonging: you and I are connected; together, we are Tāmaki Makaurau.
Facilitator Johnnie Freeland described this relational foundation through tātai hononga: the connections linking people, place and te taiao. Seen this way, relationships are not something added to climate action. They are part of how collective responsibility becomes possible.
“By remembering and restoring those tātai hononga, we can shift from fragmented action to collective, coordinated change,” says Johnnie.
Across the three days, participants met not simply through their professional roles, but as people bringing multiple identities, relationships and responsibilities into the room. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, mana motuhake, intergenerational responsibility, justice and the experiences of communities most affected by climate change were important threads throughout the gathering.
The process did not erase difference or ask everyone to agree. Nor could one gathering represent the full diversity of Tāmaki Makaurau.
It created an opportunity for those present to understand more of the wider landscape, recognise leadership already in motion and find areas of shared purpose from which relationships and action might grow. These relationships are part of the essential infrastructure of systems change.
Care sustains transformation
The climate crisis demands urgency, but urgency alone cannot sustain the people responding to it.
Across the climate movement, people are carrying responsibility, uncertainty and the emotional weight of confronting environmental and social loss. Many are doing so with limited time, funding or organisational capacity, alongside the demands of whānau, work and life.
Climate action also cannot be separated from the social and economic realities people are living with, including housing pressure, energy insecurity and the unequal effects of climate disruption.
The wānanga generated connection, hope and renewed possibility for many. It also surfaced exhaustion, grief, tension and questions about the sustainability of this work. Several of these experiences could exist at the same time.
That complexity should not be treated as a distraction from climate action. It tells us something important about the conditions transformation requires.
If people are expected to continue giving without sufficient space for rest, reciprocity, care and nourishment, even the most committed communities and organisations will struggle to sustain their work.
Care cannot remain solely an individual responsibility or something people pursue only after becoming depleted. It must be considered within the structures, resources and practices through which collective work is organised.
As one contribution captured in the film reminds us:
“Lead with your manawa, with your heart, and the action will follow.”
Not every possibility needs to become a programme
On the final day, participants gathered around areas where there appeared to be enough shared energy to continue exploring possibilities together.
The resulting pathways included Pacific climate justice, climate storytelling, inclusive climate action, local resilience, regenerative economic models, transport, kai systems, reconnection with te taiao and different approaches to governance and decision-making.
These were early expressions of possibility, interest and commitment from people in the room rather than finalised action plans. Many conversations have since continued independently. Others may connect with existing initiatives, change direction or not progress.
Their value cannot be judged only by whether they become new, formally branded projects.
This matters because climate ecosystems do not necessarily need more organisations taking ownership of emerging ideas. They may need stronger relationships, greater visibility and better access to the knowledge, resources and support that allow existing leadership to flourish.
Convening creates responsibility
A gathering creates expectations, relationships and responsibilities. People offer their time, energy, knowledge, lived experience and trust. The organisations holding the space must consider how that contribution is honoured and how what follows gives back to the people involved.
The wānanga did not produce something that belongs to Co-Aotearoa. Its kōrero, relationships, ideas and possibilities sit across the wider collective. Participants are carrying them into their own organisations, communities, collaborations and decisions in different ways.
Co-Aotearoa’s responsibility is not to claim that activity or position itself at the centre of it.
In the months since the gathering, we have been listening, reflecting and considering where we can add genuine value. An emerging possibility is a role that strengthens the connective tissue between people, kaupapa and existing work: helping people see more of the wider system, build relationships across difference and act with greater shared understanding.
The test is whether that role makes the mahi lighter and more connected, not whether it produces more activity for people already carrying too much.
Any future role must itself be relational, appropriately resourced and collectively informed.
What we are carrying forward
The wānanga left us with questions that extend well beyond one gathering:
What helps people and organisations work across difference?
Whose knowledge and experience remain absent or insufficiently heard?
How can existing leadership and activity become more visible?
What relationships are needed to turn shared intention into coordinated action?
How do we create forms of climate action that sustain rather than deplete people?
Where can Co-Aotearoa add genuine value without duplicating or claiming the work of others?
What should Co-Aotearoa hold, and what properly belongs elsewhere?
We do not yet have final answers.
What we have is a deeper appreciation of the importance of relationship: between people, communities and institutions; between tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti; between present decisions and future generations; and between all of us and te taiao.
The films capture only part of what unfolded during those three days. We share them as an invitation to witness the energy, generosity and complexity of the gathering and to continue the kōrero about the relational infrastructure that meaningful climate action requires.
Our responsibility now is to honour what was entrusted to the collective and ensure that whatever comes next strengthens the people and relationships on which transformation depends.
The films were produced by Benjamin Brooking and Wesley Chang of Popular, working with rangatahi creators Hera Watene and Waka Wikaire-James through Curative Collective. The collaboration was supported by Te Rourou, One Aotearoa Foundation and Auckland Council.