Rātā Forest Management Limited

Catchment Resilience

Stronger catchments start with seeing the whole system.

Catchment management and resilience planning for landowners, organisations and communities in Gisborne and Te Tairāwhiti. We connect land, water, forestry and infrastructure risks to practical priorities for action.

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Mō tātou, a, mō ngā uri e whai ake nei.For us and our children after us.
A forested catchment and clear stream in Te Tairāwhiti

The Challenge

What happens upstream doesn’t stay upstream.

Catchment risk is connected. Erosion, forestry activity, roads and drainage can create pathways that move sediment, debris and water through the landscape — often extending the impact well beyond where it began.

Severe weather can intensify those connections, increasing pressure on waterways, infrastructure, communities and downstream environments.

A catchment assessment helps identify hazards, pathways and exposed assets, with mapped risk priorities and practical controls to guide decisions. Start by sharing your catchment location, known risks and the decisions you need to make; we will agree the assessment scope and next steps.

Illustrated catchment showing erosion moving from steep upper-catchment forestry through waterways, roads and culverts to lower-catchment communities, infrastructure, awa and floodplain

Rātā CRMS

A framework
for resilience.

Our Catchment Resilience Management System (CRMS) connects catchment assessment with planning, approval, operations and review. It helps clients understand what work is proposed, who is responsible, what evidence supports the decisions and how implementation will be checked.

Depending on the agreed scope, project records may include risk assessments, mapped controls, approval records, monitoring results and actions tracked to completion.

  1. Assess

    Understand site, people, values, hazards, pathways, exposure and options.

  2. Protect

    Put effective controls and exclusion areas in place before disturbance.

  3. Approve

    Do not commence until required evidence and authorities are complete.

  4. Operate

    Undertake work safely and in accordance with the approved prescription.

  5. Restore

    Complete drainage, stabilisation and rehabilitation progressively.

  6. Verify

    Inspect, audit, monitor and close actions.

  7. Improve

    Apply incident, audit and storm-event learning.

Our People

The expertise behind
the system.

Catchment resilience requires more than one discipline. Rātā brings together governance, engineering, operational, health and safety, spatial and digital capability to support decisions from planning through to implementation and assurance.

Clear accountability. Independent assurance.

Our Catchment Resilience Management System (CRMS) makes accountability clear—from work on the ground through to the Managing Director and Board.

Every critical activity has defined responsibilities for delivery, assurance and approval. We separate operational delivery from assurance so that important controls are independently checked.

Material risks and assurance findings are escalated through our management and governance structure, giving leaders clear oversight of significant issues and the actions needed to address them.

External specialist review is used where additional expertise or independence is required.

Meet our directors
Two Rātā directors standing together
Aerial property map identifying vegetation, waterways, pastoral land and potential land-use opportunities

Land-use planning & optimisation

From catchment risk to a plan for your whenua.

Understanding the pressures on a catchment helps identify where to look next. Land-use planning brings that wider picture down to the property — exploring what each part of the whenua can support and what matters to its owners.

Rātā combines spatial analysis, land capability and local knowledge to compare practical options, their costs, benefits and long-term value. The result is a clearer pathway for productive land, sensitive areas and places where a different use may be appropriate.

  • Land capability
    & constraints
  • Landowner
    priorities
  • Practical options
    & trade-offs
Explore land-use planning

Get in touch

Let’s work
together.

Have a project in mind or want to learn more about what we do? We’d love to hear from you.

Get in touch
Office

101/4 Reads Quay,
Gisborne 4010

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Our People

Rātā Forest Management